Former Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs goalie and 2011 AJHL Goaltender of the Year Julien Laplante has verbally committed to attend Providence College this fall, after plans to attend Union College fell through earlier this month.
According to reports on Chris Heisenberg's 2011 Hockey Recruits List, a list that compiles all junior athletes and the schools they have verbally committed to, Laplante committed to Providence on July 18. However, formalities such as his application and hockey eligibility must still be finalized.
Laplante's hockey path took a bad turn earlier this month when Union head coach Rick Bennett learned that as a 16 year old, Laplante had played 20 minutes of an exhibition game for the Portland Winter Hawks of the Western Hockey League (WHL), according to reports in the Schenectady Daily Gazette.
The coach decided to part ways with Laplante on July 13, as any player who has played in a league deemed professional, by means of paying players, are ineligible to play NCAA Division I hockey.
Though the NCAA considers the WHL professional hockey, as teams provide a living allowance, it is unclear at this point whether Laplante received financial compensation for his 20 minutes at the helm in Portland, says the report.
Regardless, Union and its coaching staff were unwilling to take on that risk.
“We, as a staff, didn't want to go down that road,” Bennett was quoted as saying in the Gazette.
If Laplante is officially announced as a member of Providence, he will be reunited with the coaches who originally recruited him to Union.
This past spring, head coach Nate Leaman and assistant coach Ben Barr left Union to take on the head and assistant coaching positions at Providence.
The pair had originally planned for Laplante to fight for a starting spot at Union. Though that will not be happening, we may see the three reunited in the near future.
Continue to follow the Nouvelle for updates as they become available.
