By Carlos Verde
On Monday, CCHL alum Adam Beveridge signed a contract with France’s Remparts de Tours professional hockey team.
It represented the end of one chapter — a four-year university career at the University of Ottawa — and the beginning of another for a player that has had to work for every step of his journey in the game.
From beginning his career in then-Junior B with the Winchester Hawks, through being bounced around between the Pembroke Lumber Kings and the Gloucester Rangers, he experienced everything junior hockey in this region had to offer.
“It was two different ends of the (CCHL) scale there,” chuckles Beveridge, a Nepean, Ont. native, on the phone the day after inking his first pro deal with Tours. “In Pembroke back then, the fans were great (and) the whole experience in the community was amazing.
“I had a lot of fun in Gloucester, too. We had a pretty good team with great players and just got squeezed out of the playoffs my second year in the league.”
The highlight of his Central league career, however, remains Pembroke’s run to the 2015 Bogart Cup final — specifically an electric Game-7 road win over the Ottawa Jr. Senators.
“We were up 3-1 in that series, let them climb back in, (but) finished them off in Game 7 there which was the most memorable game I played in,” he remembers. “(Alex) Boivin and (Felix) Chamberland were huge in that game.
“Playing against Boivin the last four years — he played at Carleton — has been a lot of fun.”
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When the time came to make a decision after a steady 20-year-old season in Pembroke, he opted to stay home and become a part of head coach Patrick Grandmaitre’s brand-new project at the University of Ottawa.
“I had no idea coming into (U SPORTS) what it was,” chuckles Beveridge, who tips the scales at 220 lbs. and shares a resemblance with the Sherman M-4 tank off the ice. “My first season was pretty eye-opening (and) the level of hockey was pretty high, (especially) the speed of the guys coming from major junior.”
Four seasons and countless on- and off-ice workouts later, the CCHL alum leaves uOttawa with an honours degree in finance and the memories and friends to last a lifetime.
“When the program restarted, everyone was a ’95 (birthyear) and now we’re all graduating at the same time,” he explains. “I have best friends now that I’ll stay in touch with the rest of my life.”
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In return for the commitment and contributions of Beveridge and the rest of his 2019 senior class, Grandmaitre — whose fourth-year program earned a national championship berth this season — has hit the phone lines to Europe hard this spring.
“Our guys deserve it, they’ve put so much into this program,” says Grandmaitre, the 41 year-old architect of uOttawa’s unique program. “I’m able to better recruit for uOttawa now because of all the work they did — I’d be stupid not to work hard to try and get them a deal.”
It’s expected the majority of uOttawa’s senior class will turn pro this summer, forgoing a potential fifth year of U SPORTS hockey in the process.
“It’s a lot of work, being prepared to give out quick feedback,” outlines the uOttawa coach when asked how he markets his players. “We provide (teams) with video packages, information on a player’s character off the ice, all our off-ice training statistics. We’re thorough.”
Character is something his bulky local defenceman had in spades.
“You look at Adam Beveridge, his statistics, his progression with us,” says Grandmaitre. “Adam was not a player that was 100% always in the lineup, but his consistent work ethic, investment in working out and asking for feedback, was great.”
The head coach has built a program that prides itself on skill and off-ice training, and sees his Class of 2019 as a product of that.
“It shows the amount of work we’ve put into our program, the skill development with (Dir. of Player Development) Evan Brownrigg and (Strength & Conditioning Coach) Zach Yantha in the high-performance centre,” he summarizes. “We feel like we invest a lot in development, and this is paying off in a couple ways — winning in the playoffs, seeing guys graduating, and the majority will sign pro.
“It’s an all-around success story.”
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For Beveridge, the future is an open canvas.
A hockey season in France beckons, with the security of a finance degree in his back pocket.
“Mainly I’m excited to experience a whole new country and different style of hockey over there,” says the former Lumber King and Ranger. “It’s a good stepping stone for me, a great opportunity to play there and possibly move up into other leagues if I decide to continue my hockey career.”
He won’t be the first CCHL or U SPORTS alum to pass through Tours, either; former Orleans Blue Dylan Anderson — Acadia ’16, Queens ’17 — played the final 13 games of his career with the Remparts in 2018-19.
“Off the ice, there’s certain certifications I can get,” outlines Beveridge. “I was thinking about starting to study for my Chartered Financial Analyst designation as I’ll have quite a bit of downtime in France, then maybe take the (exam) the following spring.”
Regardless of what the future may hold, one thing is set in stone: After a path that snaked from the Junior-B jungle, through the PMC and Earl Armstrong Arena, to university hockey in his hometown, Adam Beveridge ended the day Monday as a pro hockey player.
And he did the whole thing on maximum effort.
