LaMontagne welcomes chance to prove himself with Spitfires

Jake LaMontagne has always welcomed the challenge to prove himself. A16-year-old defenceman, LaMontagne rose to the challenge last year after moving over to the Detroit Honeybaked minor midgets and he’s now ready to do it again with the Windsor Spitfires. The club’s first of two fourth-round picks in June’s Ontario Hockey League Draft, the six-foot-four, 196-pound LaMontagne has signed his standard player agreement to join the team. “Ultimately, it’s just a [...]

Jake LaMontagne has always welcomed the challenge to prove himself. A16-year-old defenceman, LaMontagne rose to the challenge last year after moving over to the Detroit Honeybaked minor midgets and he’s now ready to do it again with the Windsor Spitfires. The club’s first of two fourth-round picks in June’s Ontario Hockey League Draft, the six-foot-four, 196-pound LaMontagne has signed his standard player agreement to join the team.

“Ultimately, it’s just a great organization,” said LaMontagne, who is from New Hudson, Mich. north of Ann Arbor. “They’ve gotten so close (to a championship) for so long. Plus, it’s really close to my house.”

A year ago, LaMontagne made the decision to leave the Compuware hockey program and join Honeybaked. “I knew I would be one of the guys on the bottom of the roster, but playing with guys that are better makes you better,” LaMontagne said. “By the end of the year, if look at how I was skating at the end from the start, it was a huge difference.”

Honeybaked went on to become the first American team to the ever win the OHL Cup and LaMontagne’s towering presence on the back end played an important role. “It was really special,” LaMontagne said. “It was my first time ever on a championship winning team.

“I knew from the first day it was one big family. There were no bad kids in that locker room and the chemistry was like no other. It feels good to have our names under that (championship).”

LaMontagne was one of four defencemen from the Honeybaked program selected in the OHL Draft. Max Lappan went in the first round to Niagara, Ivan Belikov went to Sudbury in the second round with Liam Weaver taken in the sixth round by Oshawa. Spitfires’ general manager Bill Bowler, who did not have a pick in the second round or third round, considered himself fortunate to land LaMontagne with the 69th pick overall.

“He’s got a big frame that played on a championship team,” Bowler said. “He’s a great teammate and, as he grows into that frame and continues to develop and work on his skills, we think it’s an excellent pick in the fourth round. “You see a guy with that size and his consistency.

With the amount he played and performed, coaches love players like that that are so consistent and reliable. You throw in character and we think he will help our team immensely.” For LaMontagne, where he was selected in the draft doesn’t mean as much to him as where he was selected to play.

“It doesn’t mean that much to me going later than maybe I was supposed to,” LaMontagne said. “It’s not when you go, but where you go. “When Windsor was up, I was hoping they would take me.

I had a great conversation with Bill and he visited my family.” LaMontagne does have a battle this season to crack a crowded Windsor defence that features overager Conor Walton, Jonathan Brown, Andrew Robinson, Sam Wathier, Grady Spicer, Jesse Debruyn, Drake Gram and overager Anthony Cristoforo, who is expected to see most of his time at forward. “I never really played other sports,” LaMontagne said.

“Hockey’s always been what I wanted to do. “Getting signed with the Windsor Spitfires I view as just the start for me. It’s the start of something new and way bigger and hopefully I grow and develop.

It’s going to be tough, but I’m going to work on getting bigger and faster myself and (the competition) is only going to make me better.” Twitter.com/@winstarparker