Coming home
He’s enjoying experience with rival Remparts
Gentile returns to Sydney with rival Remparts.
Derek Gentile may be small in stature, but the Sydney native insists size has never been an issue during his progression through minor hockey.
The five-foot-seven forward, who cracked the lineup of the Québec Remparts this season as a 16 year old, hits the ice at Centre 200 tonight at 7 p.m. when his team concludes a three-game Maritimes road trip against the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.
“I don’t like to think of my size as an issue – I can use my size to my advantage, just as a big man can use his size to hit, I can use my size to get through spaces a big man can’t,” said Gentile, who has put up big numbers at every level he has played.
After impressing as a 13-yearold with the Cape Breton-based Cougars in the Nova Scotia Major Bantam Hockey League, he followed up his rookie campaign with a league-leading 70 points (31 goals, 39 assists) in 33 games to pip Shane Bowers by one point for the NSMBHL’s 2013-2014 scoring title. Ironically, Bowers was drafted by the Screaming Eagles with the first-overall pick in 2015 QMJHL entry draft. However, the former Halifax midget star opted instead to join the USHL’s Waterloo Blackhawks.
Gentile was also selected in the June draft with the Remparts, making him their first pick, 70th overall, following an outstanding season with the Rothesay Netherwood School in New Brunswick, where he scored 32 goals and 60 points in 42 games, played mostly against other prep schools and teams of major midget calibre. He may have went higher, but there were reports that Gentile was considering the NCAA route in the United States and would probably not play in the QMJHL.
But, according to dad Paul, the family reconsidered its options after he was selected by Québec, a very successful franchise that claims the legendary Guy Lafleur as one of its alumni.
“He really enjoyed Rothesay and had a great year there academically as well as athletically, and quite frankly was going to pursue a more academic route to play hockey,” said the senior Gentile, who starred for both Sydney Academy (Class of ’87) and the Capers when the post-secondary institution was known as the University College of Cape Breton.
“But the Québec Remparts are a good organization that really provided him an opportunity to play hockey at a high level and to prepare himself academically for down the road. The organization has produced a great number of fine people, not just in hockey, but very successful members of the business community, the medical community. They run a very professional, and very sincere, program.”
The Remparts, who hosted last year’s Memorial Cup, took the league champion Rimouski Océanic to double overtime of Game 7 of the QMJHL finals after narrowly escaping the first round when they barely managed to overcome the Screaming Eagles in seven games.
This was supposed to be rebuilding year for the Remparts, but the storied franchise, that averages some 14,000 fans per game at Québec’s new Centre Vidéotron, has exceeded expectations and sits sixth-overall in the QMJHL with a 16-11-2 record.
With Canada’s 60 major junior hockey clubs only allowed to have three 16-year-olds on their rosters, making the grade at that age is an accomplishment in itself.
But Gentile’s bantam coach, Ken Tracey, said he wasn’t surprised that the highly skilled player made the Remparts this season.
“Knowing Derek’s passion to play and his determination to play at that high level, no, it doesn’t shock me in the least that he made the team,” said Tracey, who is once again coaching the major midget Cape Breton Tradesmen.
While Québec heads into tonight’s contest on a two-game road winning streak, the Screaming Eagles are coming off an embarrassing 7-2 loss to the archrival Mooseheads in Halifax on Tuesday that ended a threegame Cape Breton winning streak.
“It’s not going to be a piece of cake, it’s going to be a difficult game to play so we’re going to have to be ready and make sure we have our A-game,” said Screaming Eagles head coach Marc-André Dumont.
Cape Breton will be back in action again on Sunday for an afternoon game against the visiting Sherbrooke Phoenix. The puck drops at 3 p.m.