Hometown rivalries on the line for Lions
Foucault has made a seamless transition to B.C. from native Montreal
Imagine, if you will, all 6-8 and 320 pounds of David Foucault clearing the front of the net or flying down the wing.
There was a time when minor hockey coaches in Montreal were in love with that image, a time when that image may have become a reality; when Foucault’s athletic future would have been pre-determined by Quebec’s all-consuming passion for the puck.
That time is no more, and Foucault is part of a generation that chose the gridiron over the rink — much to the B.C. Lions’ delight.
Still, it’s fun to think of the giant offensive lineman as the francophone Zdeno Chara — even if Foucault doesn’t think in those terms.
“I loved hockey,” he says. “But I couldn’t do both and football was my sport. I think I made the right choice.”
Just out of curiosity, what kind of hockey player were you, David?
“I thought I was a goal scorer but the coaches wanted me to be a goon,” he says with a laugh.
Foucault, now two games into his CFL career, is back in his hometown for a matchup with the Alouettes, part of a five-man contingent of Quebecers who play for the Lions.
Included in the “Block Quebecois” are defensive tackles David Menard and Junior Luke, linebacker Frederic Chagnon — who, like Foucault, is an alumnus of the University of Montreal — and guard Charles Vaillancourt, who played for the Carabins’ great rival at Laval, the Rouge et Or.
This francophone presence is pleasing to another Montrealer with the Lions, head coach Wally Buono, who took a slightly different path to the CFL but has never forgotten his roots.
During the Lions’ training camp in Kamloops, Buono was chatting with a reporter when he pointed to Foucault and said: “I like that kid because he’s from Montreal and he’s a tough guy.”
Buono was reminded of that this week.
“If he was Italian I’d like him even more,” he says. “He’s the first (offensive linemen) we’ve had in years who scrapped in training camp. You don’t want them to fight but you like that mentality.”
Buono likes a number of things about the 28-year-old behemoth.
He likes that, in his first year with the team, Foucault has nailed down a guard position, allowing the Lions to start four Canadians on the offensive line. He likes that, in his first two starts, the first-year player held his own against two of the CFL’s best defensive lines in Edmonton and Toronto.
And Buono likes that Foucault has moved seamlessly into the Leos’ lineup after three mostly lost years chasing the NFL dream.
“It’s been a long time,” Foucault says. “Just to have an opportunity to play, that’s important for me.”
He’s asked if the NFL is out of his system.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m home now. I don’t want to go there and be the guy who gets cut.”
Of course, the mere fact the NFL got in his system in the first place is a story. After four seasons with the Carabins, Foucault landed a free agent tryout with the Carolina Panthers in 2014 and made the NFL team’s 53-man roster as a rookie.
He would dress for five games, starting one, but the next year he was relegated to the practice squad before he was waived by the Panthers at the start of 2016 and spent the year in Montreal.
In March, Buono shipped perennial all-star Jovan Olafioye and his hefty salary to the Als for the rights to Foucault and offensive lineman Vincent Brown. Foucault signed a three-year deal, moved to guard from his preferred tackle position in training camp and hasn’t missed a beat.
“There hasn’t been any of that, ‘I’ve been in the NFL’ thing,” Buono says. “We moved him to guard and he didn’t say a word.”
Geroy Simon, the Lions’ director of Canadian scouting, didn’t track Foucault during his college career but he was familiar with the player. Simon has also been instrumental in drafting Vaillancourt, Luke and Chagnon since he rejoined the Lions in 2015 and says the players from Quebec arrive to the CFL with an edge.
“It just seems like most kids out of Quebec have a chip on their shoulder,” Simon says. “They play a little bit harder.” That’s certainly true of Foucault. “He has the mean streak and the willingness to work,” Simon adds. “And he’s a tough dude. He’ll get his ass kicked but he’ll try to finish the play. He’s going to come back and he’s going to fight you.”
Players from Quebec haven’t always been held in such high regard, but about the time Laval emerged as the Canadian college power in 1999, things began to change in the province.
The Rouge et Or — with head coach Glen Constantin and the financial backing of Jacques Tanguay — became the model program in Canada, winning seven Vanier Cups between 1999 and 2012 and sending some 20 players to the CFL.
In 2011, however, Montreal hired former Eskimos GM and head coach Danny Maciocia to run their program and a great Canadian sports rivalry was born. The Carabins won the Vanier Cup in 2014, beating Laval along the way, and lost the 2015 final to UBC. Laval came back and won the Cup in 2016, beating Calgary in the final.
“It was the games you live for in the CIS, that’s for sure,” Vaillancourt says of the Laval-Montreal holy wars.
“We played them my first year and this is where I understand how big the rivalry was.”
And understood there was more than one sport in Quebec.