Every year, just before hockey season starts, Vincent tells his parents, “Just one more year, eh, mom and dad, and then I’m going to go to med school.” So began an annual tradition that needed about 10 years to turn into a running family joke. “I couldn’t even afford my own place, so I made them a promise: I said, ‘If you support me in doing this, after this year, I’m going back to school.'”

My parents were like, ‘What are you doing?’ They were crushed. I only had to go to med school and do my stuff and then was set for life. “Calling my parents and telling them … we had a big argument,” Vincent said. The job promised long hours, tough travel, not much glory, and even less pay. To me, that’s the second-best thing, right?” If I can’t make it (to the NHL) as a player, maybe I’ll make it as a coach. I didn’t look for this, but when I got the call, it got me thinking. “My passion for hockey … this is my life. “It was major-junior, so a really good opportunity. “I was 21 years old, and the players I would be helping to coach were between 16 and 20,” Vincent said. Therien needed an assistant coach for a talented roster with future NHL stars Jose Theodore and Georges Laraque. It was one of his former coaches, Claude Therien, head coach with Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, then a club in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Pascal Vincent had a nice ring to it.īut at the end of summer, just weeks before school was to start, Vincent got a call. His parents, a Montreal police officer and a stay-at-home mom, were delighted. He had discussed opening a clinic with his friend, who was a year ahead in school. Vincent made plans for medical school in the fall. And so that was where I was at - I’d given hockey what I had to offer, and this was the end of the road.” “I don’t want to be an ECHL call-up in the American League, riding that bus, just wasting time when I could have been at school.

“After that year in Knoxville (1992-93), I looked at myself in the mirror, and it was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m not good enough to play in the NHL,'” Vincent said.

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