{"id":129711,"date":"2025-08-08T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/129711\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T18:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:26:10","slug":"former-avs-center-achieves-life-long-dream-awarded-captaincy-for-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/129711\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Avs Center Achieves Life-Long Dream &#8212; Awarded Captaincy for Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around this time last year, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was preparing for a professional tryout with the Avalanche \u2014 one that was unsuccessful in earning a contract.<\/p>\n<p>The now 40-year-old center did an admirable job in training cap but was unable to earn a roster spot. Instead, he spent the 2024-25 season in Europe and went on to play his 12th IIHF World Championships with Team France just a few months ago.<\/p>\n<p>With France solidifying a spot at the upcoming Milano Cortina games, Bellemare, who will captain the team, has an opportunity to realize a dream he thought was dead in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>He gets to play at the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>France has not qualified for the Olympics since 2002, which was right before Bellemare began his professional hockey career. He is the first\u00a0known captain of the 12 nations.<\/p>\n<p>This couldn\u2019t happen to a better guy. Bellemare was a stand-up personality when he played for the Avs from 2019-2021. He was also a key piece of the Tampa Bay Lightning\u2019s veteran fourth line alongside Corey Perry and Patrick Maroon in 2022 when they lost to Colorado in the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Bellemare didn\u2019t make the team out of camp and probably should have. He could\u2019ve given the Avs much-needed bottom-six depth in the first half of the season, when they were starving for healthy bodies with NHL experience.<\/p>\n<p>But that didn\u2019t stop him from being his usual joyful self in the locker room. He was great with the younger players and had a positive attitude all throughout.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m excited for him to get this opportunity.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Fun quote from Bellemare recalling the 2022 Stanley Cup Final when he was with Tampa Bay <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EY3WoCRp34\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/EY3WoCRp34<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aarif Deen (@runwriteAarif) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/runwriteAarif\/status\/1836858681557700751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">September 19, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/paypalme\/colhockeynow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/CHNS-Tip-Jar.png\" alt=\"Contribute to CHN's travel and support local journalism!\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around this time last year, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was preparing for a professional tryout with the Avalanche \u2014 one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[4830,2995,1322,293,79069,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-129711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-pierre-edouard-bellemare","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114994556800269593","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}