The one about…finding the one

When you know, you know.

Natasha Zare knew Maxim Lapierre was the one from the first time she laid eyes on him.

“Well, maybe not the very very first time, but it didn’t take long,” Natasha laughed Sunday afternoon taking a break from the sun, sitting on the shaded patio in their backyard.

Lapierre was traded to Vancouver on February 28, 2011, and despite a hectic schedule for the Canucks, he tried his best to get out and explore Vancouver. That led him to Cactus Club Yaletown on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, for a bite to eat with a buddy. Natasha was their waitress. That was almost the end of the story.

Chris Higgins, also new to Vancouver, his brother and Kevin Bieksa joined Lapierre forcing a move to a larger table.

“He helped me with the menus and he helped do his own cutlery,” explained Natasha. “He’s the only person that has ever helped bring everything to the other table himself.”

And you thought chivalry was dead.

The small gesture from Maxim sparked a connection between the two, although Natasha admits she was hesitant to get into a relationship. A few days earlier she had given her notice to Cactus Club with a move to Florida on the horizon with Natasha preparing to accept a scholarship to law school.

Then Maxim called. Then he called again. And again. He kept calling until she gave him the time of day.

“He was persistent, let’s just say,” Natasha said smiling. “Do you remember he had that one game where he just kept going after the puck, kept going after the puck and kept going after the puck before he ended up doing a spin-o-rama for the goal? That is how I would describe us getting together. He did not stop trying.”

Maxim’s persistence paid off in this instance just as it did on November 25, 2011, when he put on a one-man show scoring the beautiful goal Natasha mentioned against the Phoenix Coyotes, and the two were inseparable weeks later. He proposed last December, December 18th to be exact, dropping to one knee moments after returning home from a lengthy five-game eastern road trip.

Natasha sees a side of Maxim that few others do; she describes him as a warm, caring man with “a big heart, the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met,” and would have continued showering him with praise if she hadn’t noticed he was now listening.

“What is that machine Derek, can you leave that for me? She speaks so nice about me into that thing,” laughed Maxim.

The chemistry between these two, who will be wed next summer in Montreal, is flawless. He’s feisty. She’s feisty. When talk of board games arises, things get heated. Scrabble isn’t just Scrabble, it’s war. Like two cats in a sock.

But that’s the only time Maxim ever displays even a glimmer of the Maxim Canucks fans see on the ice.

“Anyone who knows him, who actually knows him, knows that he’s nothing like he is on the ice in real life. He’s all gentleman.”

The one about…giving up the gift of gab

Things are changing for Maxim Lapierre.

He’s 27-years-old and maturing before our very eyes. Outwardly, he’s still Mad Max: talking a big game and backing it up in everything he does. Inwardly his actions tell a different story of how far he’s come during his time in Vancouver alone.

He’s found the one, Natasha, and is settling down. He wants to have kids, four to be exact. He bought a new house a few years ago and moved his parents next door to be close to family. All this, though, is nothing compared to the biggest change that will go down this fall when hockey returns.

“People don’t realize how much energy it takes being focused on talking to the other team all the time,” said Lapierre, hands on the wheel, foot on the pedal of his Range Rover. “It’s exhausting and I’m done with it.”

Re-read that last paragraph if you have to. I know I had to listen to the audio a few times to make sure I got it right.

One of the kings of trash talk is retiring from the yak game.

“I’d say I cut down to half of my regular talking last season,” he said. “But next year will be even better. I want to play a tough game, fight when I have to fight, and hit, but I’m done putting extra stress on the refs with my talking. I’m going to stop it. I can still play the same type of game, but the after the whistle thing, I’m totally done with that.

“It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but at some point you have to realize it’s 82 games a year for seven years. I don’t even know what to say anymore to be honest, I’ve said everything.”

You could tell a guy that it used to be called a jumpoline before yo’ momma went on it, I thought to myself, chuckling, not realizing how serious Lapierre was.

“You should just compliment people instead,” quipped Rory, filming from the passenger seat.

Without hesitation, Lapierre jumped all over the suggestion.

“That’s what I’m going to do this year,” Lapierre stated. “‘Hey buddy, how was your summer?’ They’re going to be so confused. ‘I hope you had a great family summer!’”

Clearly Lapierre hasn’t lost his sense of humour all together. That’s a good thing. But he is a man on a mission in terms of cutting the gift of gab out of his game.

“At one point early on I realized that every player is good and to get into the NHL you have to do something to have the people’s attention and catch their eye. You’ve got to find a way to stay in the NHL and every player can shoot, every player can skate, so I started to talk. Now I’m done with that. For good.”

Talking the talk like never before.

The one about…the couch

Walk into Chez Lapierre, go past the twirly stairs that lead to the second floor and take a right. You’ll head down a staircase to a pimped out basement that is every guy’s dream. Jerseys on the wall, a remarkable home theatre setup, D-box seats, a trophy room – you name it, he’s got it.

One of the most comfortable couches my bottom has ever had the pleasure of meeting makes watching movies a dream for the couple, but as Lapierre explained, moving the large white leather beauty to the basement was a nightmare.

He lead me back up the stairs, bent down and pointed to a bruise in the wall that I somehow missed.

“Tasha and I decided we wanted to move the couch from upstairs to downstairs the other day,” he chuckled. “We got to this point on the stairs when we realized it’s a two man job, like for two strong men. That’s why there’s the big dent in the wall. The couch was actually stuck on the stairs for 15 minutes, with Tasha kind of stuck with it. I had to call Guillaume Latendresse to come help me move it. Thankfully he lives close by and was able to come help.”

Natasha was not injured in the couch incident.

The one about…how they almost died

The best story of our breakfast with Maxim Lapierre and Jean-Francois is one that dates back to the 2004-05 QMJHL season with the pair playing for the Prince Edward Island Rocket and Alain Vigneault their head coach.

“We show up for practice one morning,” began Jean-Francois. “It’s February in PEI, it’s very volatile weather down there and this one morning the sun was out, no snow on the ground, it was nice. We put on our team jackets and sweat pants and sneakers, light gloves, and go to practice for a few hours.

“We leave the rink and it’s hell out there. Cars are covered in snow; literally you couldn’t see the roofs. Max was driving a 1994 beat up Hyundai two-door, one of the best pieces of crap I’ve ever seen, and we can’t even see it. Alain pulled up in his shiny SUV ready to do donuts around everyone, and said he would give us a ride to our billets.

“We jumped in. Max’s billets had just moved to a new place on a farm and so Alain asked if the snowplow would have gone through the street there. Max said he didn’t know. When we got close, Alain said he didn’t want to take a chance at getting stuck, so he dropped us off nearby, but we still had a little walk. We start walking and it turns out we really misjudged how far of a walk it was, we were like a mile and a half away.

“Picture this: 30-mile an hour winds coming at you, ice falling off everywhere, snow coming up to your knees, you’re dressed lightly and tired from practice. I’m pretty sure I saw the light at the end of the tunnel at one point. It was crazy.”

Lapierre, laughing hysterically, added: “He just kept saying: ‘I’m cold, I’m cold, I’m cold.’ It’s like a line from the movies.”

Jean-Francois continued: “We finally got to the billets and I removed my gloves and they took 12 hours to thaw.

“Then the next day Alain fined us for not being dressed in proper winter gear. I’ll never forget that. I don’t think he knows that story.

“Alain, if you’re reading this, we almost died. We didn’t, so we were more than happy to pay that fine.”

The one about…the stinky tongue

Jean-Francois was ready when the question as asked.

“You want stories, oh I’ve got stories,” he laughed, moments after sitting down to join us for breakfast Sunday morning.

“We were playing junior together in PEI,” said JF. “We got creamed the night before by Rimouski and we weren’t supposed to practice the next morning, we were supposed to travel to Bathurst, but Alain Vigneault, he was our coach back then, wasn’t too pleased with our performance so he made us skate the next morning.

“He didn’t think we were tough enough the night before, so he made us do all contact drills in practice. We were doing this one drill and I was going up against one of our big goons and next thing you know I’ve got a puddle of blood in my mouth. I didn’t know what was going on so I went back to the line and Max told me I didn’t look too good. I opened my mouth to talk but I had bit through my tongue and I had no tongue left. They had to stitch it back together.”

The table fell silent.

Yuck.

Then Maxim Lapierre chimed in with the icky details.

“I used to pick him up for practice from his billets house and when we were driving in the morning, we had to put the windows down and put our heads out of the car because it was so stinky,” roared Lapierre.

“He couldn’t open his mouth because of the stitches and it was infected and he couldn’t brush his teeth. It was terrible. It was that stinky.”

Added Jean-Francois: “That’s a story for all you ladies at home.”

Excellent Adventure: Lapierre

Hey, Maxim Lapierre here. Here’s the photos from our interviews on Sunday with the best captions you will ever read ever anywhere ever. http://bit.ly/MBAiup

The one about…the police

Maxim Lapierre is a big deal - a BIG DEAL - in Montreal.

When he was drafted to the Canadiens the hometown boy became an instant fan favourite. His face was plastered all over town - “billboards everywhere, huge ones on the highway, it was nuts” - so he has one of the most recognizable faces in La belle ville.

Just as we were wrapping up our first interview of the day outside the Bell Centre, a Montreal Police car rolled up with the officer inside preparing to ticket us for parking where we shouldn’t be parked.

Maxim walked over, said something very quickly in french, and walked back to us. “It’s all good,” he nodded.

En route to the house he grew up in I asked him what he said. “I just told him we were all finished and we were leaving.” And did him being Maxim Lapierre help the situation, I inquired. “Nope,” he replied, with a sheepish smile.

We probably could have parked on the ice at the Bell Centre and it would have been fine. I guarantee it actually.

The one about…playing in Montreal

When Maxim Lapierre was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens 61st overall in 2003, his mom jumped up and down and screamed as if the Lapierre family had won the lottery.

In a way, it did.

“They were saying I was going to get drafted in the early 20s, so when I fell so far down it was tough, but then the Canadiens took me and things couldn’t have worked out better,” said Lapierre, outside the Bell Centre Sunday morning.

“It was perfect for me to start my career here, I had my family to support me and sometimes you don’t think about it, but being 20 in the NHL is pretty young and it’s good to have your family and friends around you. My name is in the books now and my dad is proud to have his family name as part of the history. It was a good beginning and now I’m happy in Vancouver.”

The one about…Celine Dion

The first time Maxim Lapierre was in the storied Bell Centre was for a rough and tumble manly sporting event a Celine Dion concert.

“I’m not ashamed of that, I like her,” said Lapierre, matter-of-factly, and ready to pummel me with his iron fists if even the slightest smirk emerged on my face.

“I was with my whole family, in fact my parents and sister are in Las Vegas right now to see Celine.”

This Celine conversation went down at about 9:14 a.m. and with a full day of interviewing Lapierre on the horizon, I did not prod into his love for Celine any further.

Journalism lesson of the day: Don’t tick off the subject first thing in the morning, especially not about their guilty pleasure.

The one about…getting the call

“I remember when I first got called up to Montreal I was in Hamilton and I had a bad fever, I was feeling really bad, but I knew I could not say no to a call up,” laughed Lapierre. “That first moment I put on the jersey was a great moment for the family and I remember a couple of the guys were clapping in the dressing room as soon as I put it on.

“I played two minutes that night, but it was the best two minutes of my life.”

The one about…his first NHL goal

On December 12, 2006, Lapierre made his NHL debut and had an instant impact picking up his first career NHL point assisting on Guillaume Latendresse’s game-winning goal in a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins.

The very next game Lapierre picked up his first NHL goal in a 4-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The puck is on the mantle in his TV room, the memory is always on his mind.

“I remember seeing the puck coming right at me and it just hit my stick. When I heard the crowd I knew it was me that scored. It’s an unreal feeling, you can’t explain that. You talk about that goal for years after.”

Wanna go for a swim?

I can confirm that we did swim in Maxim Lapierre’s pool. I can confirm I did a cannonball. I can confirm Joey Kenward wore a male swimsuit. I can confirm it was pink.

To the Max

It’s 4:21 p.m. in Montreal as I type this. Joey, Rory and myself just got back to the hotel after spending the day with Maxim Lapierre; as those of you who were following our day via @VanCanucks know, it was a fantastic experience.

I have quotes to transcribe, stories to write, photos to cut and food to eat, so give me an hour or two and some of the best content Canucks.com has ever seen will be up.

Here’s a teaser of what you can expect: Celine Dion, Montreal police, Ben & Florentine, Jean-Francois, Montreal riots, Batman Bob, karting championships, batting cages, the Canucks duck, and last but never ever ever least, Jessica Alba.

Intrigued?