Six games into their second season in franchise history, the Pontiac Senior Comets sit in third place in the Outaouais Senior AA Hockey League (OSAAHL). In the last few games, a number of new . . .
faces have appeared in the Comets lineup, hoping to make an impression on the coaching staff and land a permanent roster spot.
Having recently joined the club, 26-year-old forward Justin Charbonneau has scored two goals in his first three outings and is confident that his offensive touch can be of tremendous benefit to a team with a proven capability of putting the puck in the net.
Standing at a solid six-foot frame, Charbonneau plays a physical game and doesn’t shy away from giving or taking one or two big hits every now and then. Equipped with a heavy shot and keen offensive instincts, he enjoys being in possession of the puck in dangerous situations.
“I’m a good shooter,” he said.
A couple of summers ago, after appearing in only seven games with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, Charbonneau was at peace knowing his years as a competitive hockey player were essentially finished.
Over the next few months however, Comets goaltender Danick Boisvert contacted him on numerous occasions, encouraging him suit up for the Comets. But Charbonneau’s response was always the same.
“I would always tell him that I wasn’t really ready to return to hockey since I let it go for a reason – to have more time for myself,” he said.
But, over the course of the summer, Charbonneau felt like he was missing the game. Having been away from hockey for a long time, besides practicing with friends in beer leagues every other week, he felt like it was time to get back to playing hockey at a high level.
Plus, with the additions of a few good friends of his on the team, including Comets defenseman Justin Lafleur, Charbonneau felt comfortable with the situation he was potentially stepping into.
“I liked the group of guys involved,” he said. “It’s fun to spend time with a great group of guys. It’s more competitive than a beer league, so it only adds to the fun. I didn’t really know about it before, but I’ve enjoyed the caliber of play so far.”
Growing up in Bromont, Quebec, Charbonneau played the majority of his minor hockey in his hometown before moving onto Drummondville to play Midget Espoir.
A relatively dominant player growing up, Charbonneau recalls practicing with his younger brother Cedric all the time. Whether it was on the pond in the backyard or scoring roller hockey goals in the street, hockey played a significant part of Charbonneau’s early life.
“We were crazy about hockey,” he said.
While he first hit the ice a little bit later than most of his peers – at seven-years-old – it didn’t take long for him to excel at become better than most kids his age.
“I played at the highest level at each level of hockey when I was young and it was pretty easy,” he said.
As a natural athlete, Charbonneau also excelled in other sports, including soccer, football and tennis where he also played competitively. But hockey always came first and his parents Patrick and Dominique did everything they could to help Charbonneau and Cedric reach their full potential on and off the ice.
“Our family never missed anything,” he said. “They always supported us in our sports.”
Just like any youngster lacing up a pair of skates, Charbonneau always dreamed of playing professionally. So, in his early teens, when he realized that hockey could potentially pay for his studies if he kept playing in elite leagues, he decided to take the game even more seriously.
So, after his first year of Midget, he enrolled into Stanstead College, a boarding school in Stanstead, Quebec – about an hour southeast of his hometown.
Charbonneau explained that Stanstead felt like the right choice because it allowed him to attend a well-reputed school, just an hour away from home, while playing high-level hockey at the same time.
At Stanstead, Charbonneau lived in a dorm room on campus, attended classes and hit the ice every day with elite talent, playing Midget AAA level hockey alongside the likes of Lafleur as well as Calgary Flames 2012 first round pick Mark Jankowski.
“It was a nice experience,” he said. “It’s really concentrated on hockey.”
In his first season at Stanstead (2010-11), Charbonneau played an offensive role in the Cadets’ supporting cast, putting up 27 points (12 goals, 15 assists) in 62 games. During the next season, his stats soared to 54 points (20 goals, 24 assists) in 62 games, good for third on the team.
During his time in prep school, Charbonneau said he received scholarship offers from a number of American universities and he knew that obtaining an education was the most important thing for his future.
Still a young hockey player however, he wasn’t physically prepared for the grueling grind of college hockey.
“I wanted to continue playing junior and to keep improving before playing collegiately,” he said. “Junior hockey is usually more rough than collegiate hockey. In two years, for sure, I had the time to bulk up and grow a bit more.”
So, instead of going to school, he signed a contract with the Ottawa Junior Senators from the Central Canadian Hockey League (CCHL) where he played the next two seasons and had quite a memorable experience.
Before entering the league, he received offers from a number of other CCHL franchises. But having enjoyed Ottawa and because of its proximity to well-reputed post-secondary institutions, he felt like it was the best place to spend the next couple of seasons.
In his first year in the nation’s capital (2012-13), he put up 21 points in 61 games helping his team finish atop the CCHL standings with 40 wins in 62 games before being ousted in the second round of the playoffs.
During the next season, he finished third on the Junior Sens in points with 52 (28 goals, 24 assists) in 61 appearances, leading the team to another division title before another unceremonious playoff exit.
While he and his teammates never got over the playoff hump, they still had a considerable amount of regular season success during his time there, which made Charbonneau’s experience quite memorable.
“I was with a great group of people and we had a great team both years,” he said. “For sure, being on a winning team was always fun.”
Wanting to get an education as soon as possible, Charbonneau wanted to put his studies before sports.
Always prioritizing academics, playing collegiate hockey was always something that Charbonneau had in mind, even before playing junior.
“School is more important than hockey, in my opinion, for the future,” he said.
After two seasons of junior hockey, Charbonneau decided that it was time to get back to school.
He received several offers from a number of well-reputed schools, including a number of division-I NCAA programs. However, Charbonneau signed his letter of intent with the Norwich University, in Vermont U.S.A., enrolling into a four-year mechanical engineering degree.
He picked Norwich because of its proximity to home and the overall quality of the scholarship.
“It was my best offer, in financial terms,” he said. “Whereas, even if I went with a division-I, they covered less than Norwich.”
For Charbonneau, the best part about playing college hockey abroad was being part of a program known for its hockey crazed culture.
Besides hitting the books or hitting the ice, there wasn’t much to do in a small Vermont town in the middle of nowhere.
However, having 3,000 people cheering in the stands on a night-to-night basis, all while winning a lot of hockey games, Charbonneau looks back on his experience at Norwich University with fond memories.
“The arena, the crowd and everything – we were actually pretty spoiled,” he said. “It’s a program with money and we weren’t lacking much.”
In his freshman year with the Cadets (2014-15), Charbonneau put up six points (five goals, one assist) while appearing in 20 games, as his team finished atop of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conf erence (ECAC) East with a 25-4-1 record.
In his sophomore season, he appeared in 27 games and notched 10 points (five goals, five assists). His Cadets finished third in the New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) with a 17-8-2 record.
While the team had a lot of success on the ice, Charbonneau felt like after two years abroad, he’d had enough of living in Vermont.
It was time for a change of scenery and, once he saw that the University of Ottawa was reestablishing its mechanical engineering program, he decided to transfer.
“I missed the big city a little bit because in Norwich there isn’t much to do,” he said. “It’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s far, not close to home and I missed the big city.”
Already familiar with the city, having made a number of friends in the area during his time with the Junior Sens, transferring to U Ottawa felt like a no-brainer.
“I was interested in coming back in the area,” he said.
But, after only seven games with the garnet and grey, his career as a Gee Gee came to a close, when he walked away from the hockey program halfway through his first season with the team.
He realized that hockey was taking up a large portion of his time, which he could’ve been spending on school, so he called it quits.
“I kind of realized that hockey for me at that moment was too much,” he said. “I preferred to have more time to dedicate to other things in my life than doing road trips all weekend without spending anytime studying.”
Now, in his fourth year of a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Ottawa, Charbonneau is excited to earn his degree and said that everything is going swimmingly so far.
Intrigued by the program because of how it relates to product design and its capability of being valuable to him in the future, he added that he was inspired by his father who owns an environmental services company working with waste equipment like garbage trucks.
“That’s a little bit what motivated me to study in that field,” he said.
Although Charbonneau decided to put the game he loved on the backburner for the first time in his life, he still played beer league hockey with friends on occasion throughout the rest of the winter. However, he didn’t play at all during the summer.
“It had been a long time since I played, before suiting up for the Comets,” he said.
But when Boisvert finally convinced him to join the Comets last summer, Charbonneau wasn’t too worried about being a little rusty or out of shape.
Having played high level hockey his whole life, he was ready for whatever challenges senior hockey would throw at him.
“It didn’t bother me much,” he said.
With games played only once per week, against elite players in a competitive atmosphere, with no team practices or off-ice training required, Senior Hockey has been a great fit for Charbonneau.
While he hasn’t pin-pointed what he wants to do for a career, Charbonneau feels like that’s something he’ll figure out when he’s done his studies.
