“I remember the Cocagne arena was packed to the rafters”

Abstract

Serge LeBlanc, who was born and raised in Sainte-Marie-de-Kent—a small town approximately 45km from the City of Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada—is a proud Southeast Acadian known affectionately to his friends and colleagues as ‘Bâyo’. Since the 1990s, Serge has become a staple in regional and national hockey communities in his capacity as an extremely dedicated equipment manager. He has worked with the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), with Team Canada at the World Junior Championship, and with is currently the equipment manager for the Canadian Women’s National Hockey Team. In addition to looking after some of the world’s best athletes, Serge is a husband and father who works as the head equipment manager for all sports at the Université de Moncton, the country’s first Acadian university and also the largest francophone university outside of Quebec. This essay provides a brief history of the Acadian people and will then overview a conversation Serge had with the first author (also an Acadian from Moncton) about his heritage, his experiences in hockey, and how he believes that the two overlap.