Black History Month | The inspiring story of Frantz Jean

Resilience. That’s the first word Frantz Jean, goaltending coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning, mentions when describing the journey of his father, Nécastille, who immigrated to Montreal at just 17. Story time.

“My father was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He had always dreamed of making a life for himself in Canada, and he arrived here with only $100 in his pockets. We’re talking 1955 or 1956. It was a pretty gutsy move! He had met a Quebec priest in Haiti, who found him a place to stay for the first week. After that, he was on his own,” says Frantz Jean, who was goaltending coach of the Moncton Wildcats for 13 years before joining the Lightning in 2010 as a goaltending consultant. He was promoted to coach the following year.

“My father did all kinds of odd jobs to save money for school, says Jean. He went to Université de Montréal, but he had no idea what he wanted to do! He got into the elevator and someone pressed a button. The doors opened, and my father stepped out of the elevator onto the optometry faculty floor. And that’s what he decided to do: optometry!

“Not only did he do his optometry courses, but after that, he went to law school, Jean continues with pride. Then, he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in optometry! My father has an advanced education and incredible general knowledge. You can talk to him about anything. And good luck winning an argument against him!”

Early in his career, “when he was trying to build up his clientele”, Nécastille Jean also taught optometry for about ten years.

It was during this time that he met Suzanne Bergevin, who would become his wife and the mother of Frantz, Philippe, the eldest, and Marc-Antoine, the youngest.

Frantz is therefore the only one with a Haitian first name. “It was important to my parents that at least one of their children have Haitian heritage, Frantz points out. And I did the same with my son. His name is Néka, my father’s nickname. We just changed the C to a K.”A couple that drew attention

On this Valentine’s Day, we have to know the love story of Nécastille and Suzanne, don’t we?

“My father went to Université de Montréal and lived right next door to Collège Brébeuf. My mother lived at the Maria Goretti residence, just across the street from Brébeuf. My father was sometimes going to Maria Goretti for lunch, so that’s where they met. I say this humbly, but my mother and father were good-looking people. And back then, in the early ‘60s, interracial relationships were rare. Let’s just say they turned a lot of heads,” laughs Frantz.

The 52-year-old goaltending coach doesn’t hesitate for long when it comes to the values passed on to him by his parents.

“My parents split up when we were quite young. My mother raised three boys. My father was in the picture, but we lived mostly with my mom. She was extremely resilient and organized. So did my father, given his immigrant background. My parents also taught us to always have a plan of action, to keep moving forward despite life’s obstacles. And my parents have always been hard workers. My father came here on his own and built a great career from nothing.”

So hard at work, in fact, that Nécastille Jean retired as an optometrist just two years ago, at the age of… 82! “In his late 60’s, he had retired for the first time, but he got bored, so he started working again for two-three days a week, recounts Jean. He’d leave Estérel [where he still lives] on Tuesday morning, work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and return home on Thursday evening.”

 

His hockey debut

What about hockey now? Unlike many other children, Frantz didn’t start playing because of his father or older brother. “It happened a bit by accident, I’d say. I started when I was 8 or 9, in the schoolyard with my friends. My friends were also playing organized hockey in Ville Mont-Royal, so I asked my parents if I could join. That was in 1981 or 1982. I still remember it: there was a little window, like a drive-through. A little lady answered. It cost $25 for the year!

“I started out as a player, adds Frantz Jean. I was good, I was always athletic. I scored a lot of goals. But I was always interested in the goalkeeper position, especially because of the equipment and the mask. One day, my coach, who was the father of my friend Éric Beausoleil, phoned me. Our goalie had to miss a game, and Éric had told him that I often played goalie at school. So he asked me to replace him, and I never left the net again!”

Slowly but surely, Frantz Jean rose through the ranks as a goalkeeper. To the point of being invited to the Saint-Hyacinthe Laser training camp in 1990. He was 19 years old.

Jean played six games with the Laser, before being traded to the Victoriaville Tigres, where he played five games. The following year, he made his debut in net for Moncton University, where he played for five years.

“My time in the QMJHL was very exciting for me. If you would have seen me in Bantam, you would have said: ‘That guy’s never going to play in the QMJHL!’ Let me remind you that I started playing goalie in my final year of Pee-Wee. I was playing at the “CC” level in Bantam! I worked very hard to get to the QMJHL. People don’t realize it, but it’s very hard to play in the QMJHL. It’s Quebec’s best who play there. I made the team as a 19-year-old rookie. To have convinced Norman Flynn to keep me around and let me play a little is a huge accomplishment for me. Huge! Martin Brodeur and Stéphane Ménard were there. They were two excellent goalkeepers and I managed to sneak in. It just goes to show, once again, that anything is possible if you work hard.”

 

A memorable stint in the QMJHL

In Frantz Jean’s mind, there’s clearly a pre-QMJHL and a post-QMJHL period. “My 11 games in the Q led me to the Montreal Canadiens’ training camp. François Allaire had seen me play goalie, and in the summer he invited me to his hockey school with all the best goalies in the QMJHL. I had a strong showing, and in the end, he invited me to the Canadiens’ camp! I didn’t play in the NHL, but I did win a Canadian Championship with Moncton University, where I graduated with a degree in communications. All these experiences helped me grow and led me to my current career. I loved watching François work, he inspired me. When I finished university, the Wildcats hired me as their goaltending coach, and I was delighted to return to the QMJHL. The rest is history.”

This history is one of a two-time winner of the President’s Cup (now the Gilles-Courteau Trophy) with the Wildcats, in 2006 and 2010, and the Stanley Cup with the Lightning, in 2020 and 2021.

“I’ve been making my living as a goaltending coach for almost 27 years now, and I still love it, says Frantz with a smile in his voice. I’m convinced that none of this would have been possible without my stint in the QMJHL in the early ‘90s. It was a turning point for me.”

Since joining the Lightning, Frantz Jean has coached a number of former QMJHL goaltenders, including Cédrick Desjardins, Sébastien Caron, Mathieu Garon, Kevin Poulin, Louis Domingue, Christopher Gibson and Maxime Lagacé.

And also, for the past 10 years, Andrei Vasilevskiy, considered one of the top three netminders in the world, if not the best.