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Alarie lives in River Park South and admits he ’ s “ a long way from school .” However , his parents or a teammate ’ s parents drive him the 25 minutes to Shaftesbury every morning and then he gets on the bus and drives all the way back Southdale to practice . That ’ s much closer to home .
“ When we ’ re at The Rink training , it takes a lot of time ,” he said laughing , “ but here at Southdale , it ’ s pretty close .”
Alarie is a typical elite Manitoba hockey player , inasmuch as his development checks all the regular boxes .
“ I started skating at two at public skating at Dakota and Jonathan Toews Arena and then I started playing hockey at four ,” he said . “ At four , I was playing with five and sixyear-olds at Dakota . I played all my minor hockey with the Dakota Lazers and then I played two years with the St . Vital Victorias and then one
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year after that with the minor bantam Warriors .”
French is Alarie ’ s first language and he admits that while school can be a challenge at times , he ’ s getting used to it . He has an older brother , 18 , who also played with the Warriors and then played a year of high school hockey and a 12-year-old sister .
He has also decided that he ’ d rather pursue the WHL route to his hockey dreams as opposed to the US or Canadian college route .
“ The Western League has always been my goal ,” he said . “ Since I ’ ve been young , I ’ ve listened to my dad ( Richard ) tell me about his heroes playing in the WHL and I ’ ve always wanted to play there .”
Although he ’ s a tremendous scorer , he likes to think of himself as a playmaker first .
“ I like to make the play that has the best chance to score ,” he explained . “ I would
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EVERYONE IS
DEFINITELY GOING
TO KNOW ABOUT
HIM , HE ’ S A BIG BODY
AND HE ’ S TOUGH TO
PLAY AGAINST
call myself a playmaker . I can shoot , but I try to get the puck to my teammate with a better chance .”
Coach Purdie is thrilled to have Alarie at RHA this season . After all , the coach knows that this year ’ s team is still not at the level that last year ’ s team reached . But there is still plenty of time to get things together .
“ Eric wanted to come and play RHA last year , but he ’ s from South St . Vital and the schooling situation didn ’ t work out ,” Purdie said . “ We ’ re really glad to have him this year because we ’ ll have a
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little bit different team . We don ’ t have that Seth Jarvis score that we had last . Seth is a player that doesn ’ t come along that often . I think we ’ ll be a scoring-by-committee team but I also think we ’ ll have more scoring from a team standpoint . I think we ’ ll spread it out more as opposed to relying on one or two guys . I like our D-corps and I like our goalies . For me , I have to get away from comparing our team where it was at the end of last year compared to where it is right now . We have a lot of work , but come March , I think we ’ ll be OK .
And come May , Eric Alarie should be high WHL pick . His dreams aren ’ t that far away . “ Everyone is definitely going to know about him ,” said Purdie . “ He ’ s a big body and he ’ s tough to play against . His name will be circled by opposing coaches . Eric Alarie is a very good player .” ❍
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114 | GAME ON | NOVEMBER 2017 |