D’Agostini Fitting in Well with Blues
By Chris Pinkert, St. Louis Blues Online
Matt D’Agostini’s childhood sounds a lot like the story of any other young boy growing up in Canada.
Before he began to crawl, he was watching hockey games on television with his father. Before he could walk without falling, he was falling on skates on a backyard rink his family built and maintained. He played organized hockey with his brother, while his dad was part of the coaching staff or helped out with whatever the team would need.
Everywhere he looked, there was hockey.
“That was always the thing to do is go out and play hockey, so I’ve been doing it my whole life,” D’Agostini said recently. “My dad was a big hockey fan, my brother and I both played…our whole family was always into hockey.”
And that’s how it starts for most children growing up north of the border. A dream to one day play in the NHL is prominent, although a vast majority of the dreamers never get a chance to play on the big stage.
For D’Agostini, his first chance at the NHL came on perhaps the biggest stage in hockey: in Montreal, where fans of the Canadiens are widely considered to be among the league’s most rabid fans.
As a rookie, D’Agostini potted 12 goals and 9 assists (21 points) in 53 games with the Canadiens, proving that the offensive prowess he displayed while with the Guelph Storm (OHL) and the Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL) was no fluke.
