Peter Delmas has decided to play through the pain.
Despite a hip injury that might eventually require surgery, the Quebec Remparts star goaltender from Bedford is going to stick it out for the time being in a bid to win the second Quebec Major Junior Hockey League title of his career.
Delmas sat out for about two weeks as he underwent a battery of tests and pondered shutting it down for the season, but got back on the ice last weekend on a three-game road trip to the Maritimes and has no intentions of looking back.
“There’s a lot of talk about surgery, but at this point there’s no surgery needed,” he said. “I’m just going to continue to play and hopefully play as long as I can. If there is surgery, hopefully it’s going to be at the end of the year.”
Delmas said he can’t do much about the discomfort. Stretching and ice helps, but it’s more of a mental hurdle.
“Everybody plays with a little bit of a pain in their life so it shouldn’t be too big of a problem,” he said.
The 19-year-old is the foundation of Quebec’s championship blueprint. The Remparts, who are stocked with a whopping seven NHL draft choices, are second in the QMJHL with a 19-6-5 record. Delmas is their starter, boasting a 2.77 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage in 16 starts.
The Colorado Avalanche second-round draft choice spent the first three years of his junior career with the Lewiston Maineiacs before Remparts head coach and general manager Patrick Roy went after him in a trade this past summer.
He called Quebec “10 times better than Lewiston.”
“We’re a pretty stellar team,” he said. “We have a lot of depth, we’re really good on paper, and we’re playing more as a team. We’re looking to make a good run for it.”
