By Francois Ferland,
MontrealAlouettes.com
Montreal – In sports, it is becoming quite normal for a second-year athlete to undergo what is quickly becoming known as a ‘sophomore jinx’. For Alouettes centre, Luc Brodeur-Jourdain, while it may not have been the worst season of his young career, it was certainly his most trying.
“This season really did give me some problems,” admitted Brodeur-Jourdain.
At the beginning of the season, Brodeur-Jourdain was slated to start as the team’s left guard. However, as the season progressed and players went down to injury, he found himself in the centre-spotlight.
The Laval University graduate admits that his second professional training camp didn’t really go as planned. “I wasn’t very happy with the way things went during camp,” he said. It wasn’t so much of my physical state as much as it was how I utilized my technique and skills. I really didn’t grasp the blocking technique that I was being taught,” he added.
Brodeur-Jourdain credited his lack of production in practice to a wrist injury that he sustained in his rookie season. “It took me back a step in my development by a fraction of a second and it really made a difference in my play,” he said.
By the third game of the season, his role as a starter had been diminished, and an injury saw him be replaced by Andrew Woodruff and later on Skip Seagraves.
The solution is versatility
Now in the second half of the regular season, Brodeur-Jourdain gets a second chance at proving himself to the Montreal coaching staff. With veteran centre Paul Lambert out for nine weeks with a bicep injury, Brodeur-Jourdain is asked once again to step into the spotlight.
“Prior to Lambert’s injury, I only played centre during practice when we would simulate other teams’ offensive formations,” explained Brodeur-Jourdain. Though it wasn’t much, it did help me reach a certain comfort level.”
“I think that my big frame allows me to succeed at this position (6-foot-2, 326,lbs),” he explained. I’ve developed a better way of identifying what’s going on around me and I think that I’m good at it,” he added.
Brodeur-Jourdain is proof that versatility truly is the means of success for today’s athlete.
