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One dead sealer was small-town hockey star, another young hard-working father

Canadian Press Article online since March 28th 2008, 23:00
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MONTREAL - One of the East Coast sealers who died Saturday was a small-town junior hockey star poised to take a run at the pro leagues.
Marc-Andre Deraspe set out for the seal hunt to make some money while he was weighing his hockey future.
The 20-year-old's body was pulled from the Gulf of St. Lawrence along with those of two other hunters after a sealing boat capsized. Another man on board was still missing Saturday as the search was put on hold.
Deraspe starred for the junior A Restigouche Tigers in New Brunswick after joining the team in mid-season.
The heart-and-soul forward quickly established himself as one of the top players in the league, his coach said Saturday.
"He changed our team drastically," Tigers head coach and general manager John Paris said. "The minute he stepped on the ice we knew we had something special."
Paris said Deraspe recently received offers to play in the East Coast Hockey League, and was waiting for a shot in the American Hockey League - one level below the National Hockey League - next fall.
"You could tell that he was living his dream and that he was going to do everything he had to do to get to the pros," he said.
On Saturday, the trawler L'Acadien II collided with a piece of ice and capsized as it was being towed by a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker.
Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Que., Mayor Joel Arseneau released a list of the dead, which included the boat's captain and owner, Bruno Bourque, and Gilles Leblanc, a hunter in his 50s.
Arseneau also identified the missing as Carl Aucoin, who is in his 20s and has a young child. Two hunters were rescued from the water, including Bourque's son, Bruno-Pierre.
Aucoin's neighbour, Jeremie Cyr, said the man was married and has a two-or three-year-old boy.
"He's a young hard-working man," he said. "It's all unbelievable."
Cyr, who belongs to a local professional fishing association, said he knew Bruno Bourque for 20 years. He said he was a "good man" who was well-known around the islands.
"He was a very good fisherman and he was an experienced fisherman," he said.
"Someone made a huge error."
A few years ago, Deraspe, a young fisherman from the seaside village of L'Etang-du-Nord in Iles-de-la-Madeleine, tried to crack the lineup of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's then powerhouse Rimouski Oceanic.
He failed to make an Oceanic squad that had a young star named Sidney Crosby.
Paris said Deraspe was the classic late bloomer overlooked by scouts.
But after scoring 20 points in 15 games for the Tigers - despite being out of organized hockey for two years - the phones started to ring, he said.
His younger teammates were often awestruck by his dazzling moves, he said.
"He was a man playing against children," Paris said of Deraspe's time with the New Brunswick club.
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