Historic season comes with heartache for Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
On a day full of hope and optimism, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare received horrible news.
The Lightning center was in New York City in October preparing to play in the regular-season opener against the Rangers. That morning, he learned that his mother’s cancer had returned.
Bellemare’s mother, Frederique, had beaten breast cancer that spring. She vacationed with Bellemare’s family during the summer in Sweden. Everything seemed well until the cancer invaded her lungs and liver.
Bellemare’s path to the NHL is unique. Before making his debut at the age of 29, he emerged from having few resources and a tough home life growing up in France. He played eight seasons in Sweden before getting noticed, but he has become an important piece of winning teams, playing in the Stanley Cup final twice in the past five years, including last year with the Lightning.
But navigating through this season while seeing the health of his mother — the person he says had the greatest influence on his success as a player and a person — deteriorate was one of the most difficult challenges he has faced in his 38 years.
Bellemare’s mother died in January, a month after she was able to see her son break the NHL record for most games played by a Frenchman with his 608th career game Dec. 1 in Philadelphia.
“This is not normal,” Bellemare said. “I’m here, but I was not supposed to be here, if you look at my past and where I come from and the difficult family (situation) that we’ve had. … It’s all because of her.”
Bellemare is the Lightning’s nominee for the Bill Masterton Trophy, awarded to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the sport. Bellemare was selected by the Tampa Bay chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
Every team has a Masterton nominee. The winner will be announced after the regular season.
The qualities the Masterton award is built on are the ones Bellemare’s mother instilled in him. Growing up, money was tight, and Frederique insisted that if he and older brother Geoffroy-Alexis were going to play hockey, they had to work hard to show that the cost was worth it.
Bellemare’s father was in and out of his life — “mostly out,” Bellemare said — and was “crazy violent,” which made his mother’s nurturing and sometimes tough love even more impactful.
“We have had a mom that was super strong mentally and ready to make the decision that were tough ones,” Bellemare said of himself and his four siblings. “And (she was) also ready to do everything she could for her kids. It was kind of like an easy lesson for us to follow up. The thing was about always trying to not disappoint her.”
Frederique would sit in the stands at Bellemare’s youth games and give him a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to indicate whether she thought he gave his best effort. When Bellemare wanted to quit playing hockey to go to chiropractic school, and when he felt like an outsider in his first days playing in Sweden, his mother encouraged him to stick with it.
“Her pushing was more about don’t quit because it’s difficult,” Bellemare said. “That’s not a good reason enough to quit. Just give it your all.”
He has entered every day with the mentality that every opportunity to take the ice is a gift.
“He’s the guy that takes a lemon and makes lemonade,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “He’s a pleasure to have around. He’s an inspiration to be around, and even when you’re looking at situations that maybe aren’t so rosy, he tries to make the rosy for you. And that’s why he is the consummate professional, and he is utmost deserving for that award.”
Bellemare said he hasn’t been himself this season. Part of his heart has been elsewhere. When his mother got sick, some of his teammates told him to go be with her. But he knew Frederique wouldn’t want him to leave the team.
Before games, Bellemare put black tape on the knob of his stick, something he knew his mother would disapprove of because he said she hated the idea of mourning and preferred bright, vibrant colors. But it was Bellemare’s way of coping and keeping his mother in his thoughts.
In November, as Frederique’s health worsened, he took a leave of absence to return to France to say what he believed were his final goodbyes. When he returned, Bellemare said he felt “a lifting of a cloud right away” and his mother’s condition temporarily improved. He had plans to see her again in January; she died three days before his scheduled trip.
Bellemare would call his mother the morning after every game in which scored. When Frederique initially developed breast cancer during the pandemic, Bellemare found that the calls were important in lifting her spirits.
In his second game after his mother’s death, Bellemare scored in a home win over the Kings. He pointed to the sky to honor his mother, then immediately felt in no mood to celebrate.
“When I scored a goal, it was kind of weird because I didn’t want to smile, I didn’t want to celebrate,” he said. “The first thought that I had was like, ‘Who am I going to call?’ I thought to myself, ‘This goal is worthless because I can’t tell her.’ "
The next morning, Bellemare received texts from all his siblings, his brother and three sisters, at the time when he would normally call Frederique. In the following weeks, he called his wife, Hannah, to talk when he would normally have called his mother on drives to the rink.
“It’s been clear how much family meant to him, not only his immediate family, but especially his mother,” Cooper said “So that was tough for him and for all of us to watch him go through it. But again, he’s fought through it and come back better than ever.”
Contact Eduardo A. Encina at eencina@tampabay.com. Follow @EddieintheYard.
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