Boulerice has teammate's back
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Winger Jesse Boulerice, a veteran with more than 160 professional fighting majors to his credit, played his first game with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Saturday and it didn't take him long to show his teammates he's got their back.
Boulerice fought twice with Bridgeport's Trevor Gillies, the player who jumped Penguins rookie Robert Bortuzzo during a brawl in the previous meeting between the teams.
Staff writer Jonathan Bombulie caught up with Boulerice after Monday's practice at Coal Street Park to discuss the events surrounding his first game in black and gold.
Q: You hadn't played in a game in a while. How'd you feel out there?
A: It was almost a month and I felt it. Toward the end of the second when I started to get more and more shifts, I started to get less endurance. I felt great otherwise. I had a lot of energy and was getting in on the forecheck hard, trying to bang some bodies. I felt like I was a beast on the wall, kept control of the puck and drove it to the net a couple times.
Q: You've only been here a few weeks. Is the need to stand up for a teammate something that develops quickly for you?
A: When (Gillies) did what he did here, I wish I had the anger that I had in the stands when I went to go fight him. It's hard to recreate that two weeks later. Bort was real appreciative. It was tough after not playing for a month. I'm pretty sore in a few spots, behind the shoulders and the neck, but other than that, I feel good about it. I look forward to staying in the lineup and bringing that game every night.
Q: Say a kid is just called up from the ECHL and an opponent gives him a hard time on the ice. Is it your instinct to stick up for him even if you hardly know him at all?
A: I've always got along with everybody. If somebody's not wise enough to be on my good side, they might not get the protection they would want, but nobody's really ever been that way with me. I usually get along with everybody on the team and that makes it easy to develop that sort of relationship you're talking about where I want to stick up for them.
Q: I'm sure you weren't the only guy in the locker room who wanted to get his hands on Gillies. Did you have to talk before the game to determine who would confront him first?
A: Nothing was said, but I don't think it had to be. I knew what was going to happen. Everyone knew the situation. We got things squared away, in my opinion, and we'll put it behind us and worry about the rest of our opponents.
Q: In a fight like that, is it important to win, like on the 10-point must system in boxing, or is it more important to simply get your point across?
A: It's all about the message that you're sending.
Q: Gillies was suspended two games by the league for jumping Bortuzzo. Some would say that's how the situation should be handled, that there's no need for players to police themselves. How would you respond to that?
A: If you really want my opinion, I don't know if two was the right punishment. That's not my place to say, but I don't know if that covers it for us as players and as a team. I think what happened was the way for it to be taken care of.
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