Andre Payette and the George Laraque factor

It is funny what a deluge of rain across Britain will do to a man. I have just spent the last six weeks away from home only to return to this cloud covered land and already I have hit the bottle. I spent the day rummaging through the various websites and message boards that make up the rumor hub of the Elite League to see where exactly we all stood just a month and a week shy of the opening games of yet another hockey season.

Not much, as I have found out, has been written over the summer months about the Laraque/Payette tandem, but those who write about our sport and those who play in it have been talking about it in hushed tones and now word has finally leaked out that Andre Payette and his fitness coach back in Canada have called in the toughest man in hockey, George Laraque to train the Vipers enforcer in the finer arts of fist fighting ahead of the new season.

It all made sense and I recognised what he was up to immediately. From his tearful breakdown behind the Vipers locker-room after losing his third straight fight last season, to the delusional thinking that he was still heavy weight champion of the EIHL. Rumor had it that upon learning of other enforcer’s off-season training regimes, Payette went into a fit of rage and his trainer realised something had to be done to bring his man up to standard for when the gloves were dropped.

Looking back now, however, it is easy to see why Payette fell apart behind the Vipers locker-room that night. There he was – losing fights, his crown slipping while moments earlier he had been interviewed for the local paper and was trying to explain why he was “Still the best fighter in the league”.

It is entirely conceivable – given the pride Payette carries on his fight record that three defeats in a row and the rise of such men as Lewis and Cloutier to the top of the fighting table, that his mind snapped completely when he saw a post on one forum suggesting he was no longer one of the top 5 fighters in the league.

There was no doubt about it: The man from Cornwall, Ontario had turned to George Laraque as a last resort. I have yet to unearth were these training sessions are taking place. A local rink or a local boxing gym? Nobody could answer this one, and I was not able to press Payette himself for an answer, all e-mails were not returned. One bit of information I did find was that the costs were high and that Laraque had only given Payette discount rates because Andre’s cousin had played with Laraque in Junior hockey.

We can only speculate on all of this, because those in a position to know have flatly refused to comment on rumors concerning Payette’s training sessions with Laraque. I tried to contact Laraque and when I was just two hours outside of Manhattan last week, I heard from a source that he was in town, but by the time I arrived he was long gone according to anyone I spoke too. The pretty girl from Queens doing reception at the Hilton said a large black man with a strong complexion had been seen leaving by the side door with a smaller blonde haired man wearing a Vipers hat. She said they were off to catch a flight to Montreal, but we were never able to confirm this. . . .