Central Hockey League: Familiarity a good thing for Jackalopes teammates

Jeff Pierce and Mike Lesperance landed on the Western Michigan campus just 24 hours apart in 2004, part of a freshmen class of eight players for the Broncos.

They became roommates during their junior and senior seasons in Kalamzoo, Mich., and when their collegiate endeavors ended, both began looking toward the professional ranks to continue their careers.

Lesperance found a home first, landing in the Permian Basin with the Odessa Jackalopes after coach Paul Gillis’ brother, Mike, now the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, had followed Lesperance’s career through minor and junior hockey before he head to college.

“I got a call from my brother that I should take a look at Mike and we brought him down,” Paul Gillis said. “That’s how, especially in minor league hockey, that a lot of the players are found, through contacts, former teammates that are agents, everything.

“But Mike had met Lespo before college and was kind of just following him and told me about him.”

Pierce, though, still was looking for a professional home and had several offers on the team. His advisor was Western Michigan assistant coach Chris Brooks, who had played with Jackalopes assistant coach Matt Cressman at Western Michigan in the 1990s.

So Cressman got a call, and when Pierce found out that his roommate already was onboard, the duo was reunited.

“It made it a lot easier to know that Lespo was already here,” Pierce said. “We had gotten close through the four years at school, being roommates the last two, and it’s great to have someone that you are familiar with around you when you go into new situations.”

Now six years since they first met, Lesperance and Pierce are two important pieces to the puzzle that Gillis has crafted in his three years at the helm of the club.

Rookies in 2008-09, along with Jean Bourbeau, Garrett Gruenke and Juha Toivonen, the Broncos’ duo had to get use to the rigors of the professional game, with twice as many games, more intense practices and quite a bit more travel.

“You hear horrors stories from some players about minor league hockey, but playing for the Jackalopes and Coach Gillis has been everything I could have expected and more,” Lesperance said. “The way we’ve been treated as players, by the coaches and the organization, has been great.

“This is a different kind of hockey than you are used to growing up through minors, juniors and college and it takes a little getting used too. You have to battle all the time for a spot in the lineup and that makes you work hard every day.”

Both Pierce and Lesperance coped with the nuances of the next level very well.

Pierce finished with 66 points (22 goals, 44 assists) and was one of the candidates for the Central Hockey League’s Rookie of the Year award. Lesperance chipped in 38 points (14-24) as his role changed during a season in which the Jackalopes won the Southwest Division and advanced to Game 7 of the Southern Conference Final before falling to the Texas Brahmas.

That success was something that had been lacking for Lesperance and Pierce in college, as Western Michigan struggled in the powerful Central Collegiate Hockey Association against perennial powers Lake Superior State, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Miami (Ohio).

“The success we’ve had here in Odessa is pretty much the polar opposite of the way it was in college,” Lesperance said. “Now, it’s devastating when we lose and no one in the locker room likes that feeling.”

Watching how the coaching staff was going about to recapture the feeling is what brought Pierce and Lesperance, along with nearly 90 percent of last year’s team, back to the Permian Basin. And the Jackalopes set the bar high from opening night and haven’t let down, skating to at CHL-best mark of 35-6-4 as they prepare to host the Colorado Eagles tonight and Saturday at Ector County Coliseum.

Pierce and Lesperance are a big reason for this year’s success, according to Gillis.

“Piercy is a dynamic player and he can change an entire game with one shift or one goal and we’ve seen that many times,” Gillis said. “Lespo has become a player that is capable of filling all kinds of roles for me and that’s how I use him every night.

“He does a great job on the point in the power play, works hard on the penalty kill and on every shift he takes. I don’t think he’s realized how much talent he has and when he realizes that, he’s going to be a great player.”