By Hugo Fontaine
Well before starting his distinguished NHL coaching career, Julien honed his skills in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with Hull, manning the Olympiques' bench for four years.
It was during his first season as head coach, in 1996-97, that he got to know a gregarious 25-year-old Montreal Expos pitcher who would make the trek to Robert Guertin Arena to see the Olympiques in action.
"I remember Pedro Martinez visiting us several times in Hull," recalled Julien of meeting that year's National League Cy Young award winner. "The first time, he came to my office, grabbed a stick and was trying to maneuver the puck like the players do on the ice."
With a solid 48-19-3 record vaulting them to the top of the QMJHL standings, the Olympiques were in the midst of getting ready for their President Cup and Memorial Cup runs in the spring of 1997.
The ace pitcher came to visit Julien and his troops a few weeks ahead of Hull's hosting of the Canadian Junior hockey championship tournament, with the goal of getting the players pumped up for their upcoming journey.
"I used to be really close to Mark Routtenberg - who was a minority owner of both the Expos and the Olympiques - back in the day, and still am today. I remember they were heading for the postseason, they were in it actually. Mark brought me over and introduced me to some of the players and the coaches. I ended up talking to the team," recounted Martinez, who would go on to strike up friendships with some of the players, including Pavel Rosa and Peter Worrell. "Everybody started paying attention in the locker room and they were all pumped up after I gave them a motivational talk, speaking about facing adversity."
And so it was that one of the greatest pitchers in Expos history was happy to lend his motivational skills to the group of young hockey players, who were equally thrilled that Martinez would take the time to come see them play. One of those players was goaltender Martin Biron, who would go on to play over 500 games in the NHL.
"I remember that Pedro was also there for the ceremonial faceoff. I had played a few NHL games the year before and I was impressed with how big and strong the players were. So it really hit me when I saw Pedro because he was so small," Biron, who had been acquired by the Olympiques a few months previous, admitted with a laugh. "He came to talk to us before the game. I don't remember much of what he said, but we recognized the importance of the moment: it was Pedro Martinez, an international star and one of the best pitchers in the world."
Martinez was far from a hockey expert, but on that day he could tell the Olympiques were made of something special, so much so that he made a rather audacious prediction at the end of March - audacious, considering how much ground they still had to cover.
"After the talk, I told Mark: 'You watch. We're going to come back and we're going to win.' So he told me that if the Olympiques won the Memorial Cup, I would get a ring just like the rest of the team," continued Martinez, now a TV analyst with MLB Network. "I told him, 'I'm going to get that ring because I'm a winner!'"
The former Expo's message must've had its desired effect, as Hull went on to win 12 of their 14 playoff games to win the team's fourth-ever President Cup. And then, while hosting the 79th Memorial Cup tournament a few days later, the home squad advanced to the final directly from the preliminary round before disposing of the Lethbridge Hurricanes to take the crown as Canada's Junior hockey champions.
The Olympiques players and staff celebrated their win and eventually got their rings. Julien had caught wind of Martinez and Routtenberg's conversation, but never found out if the star hurler actually got his ring; Martinez was traded to the Boston Red Sox a few months after the conquest.
When Julien moved to Massachusetts himself 10 years later, the then-newly-minted head coach of the Bruins decided to investigate.
"I bumped into Pedro often when I was in Boston. He stayed there after leaving the Red Sox," explained Julien, who coached the Bruins from 2007-2017. "When I got there a few years after the Memorial Cup, I tried to find out if he ever got his ring. Turns out he did."
Twenty years have passed since that dream season for the Olympiques, but the 2015 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee remembers those days in Hull like they were yesterday, and it wasn't just the ring that left a mark with Martinez.
"I still have the ring at home, right along with my World Series ring. I knew the importance of it," admitted Martinez, who knows a thing or two about going all the way after winning baseball's championship with the Red Sox in 2004. "I knew it was like the World Series of Junior hockey. I keep it as something really special and something that I will try to never lose."
"The one thing I remember about Claude and Mark back then is that they cared so much about the game and their players. It didn't matter that they were the head coach or the owner, they would approach the players one by one and they had such a great relationship," he concluded. "I used to love watching that."
