Growing up in France, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare didn’t know the difference between a blue line and a clothesline well into his formative years.
And he certainly didn’t know what the NHL was until his late teens.
For the Avalanche forward to reach 500 NHL games played Saturday at age 36, therefore, seems surreal.
“If I can make it, trust me, (anybody) can make it,” Bellemare said.
Bellemare is just the second French athlete to play that many regular-season NHL games, joining Antoine Roussel (554 games) of the Vancouver Canucks. (Canadian Paul MacLean was also born in France in 1958 when his father served with the Canadian Armed Forces).