Tuesday, March 15, 2005 | By Willy Palov, Halifax Herald

Etienne Drapeau always knew he was different than most hockey players.

The original poster boy for the Halifax Mooseheads used to read poetry on the team bus and compose songs during his spare time. It made him stand out in the macho hockey world where an interest in non-sports pursuits is often mocked and individuality is sometimes frowned upon.

But more than a decade after he was selected first overall in the QMJHL draft and introduced as the Mooseheads' franchise player of the future, Drapeau says he couldn't be happier that he stayed true to his personality.

"I never fit into the stereotype for hockey players," the now 27-year-old Drapeau says. "I didn't mean to (offend) anyone but sometimes people didn't know how to take me. I remember one time I bought a new leather jacket that had all kinds of zippers and things on it and it wasn't the kind of thing most hockey players would wear. I really liked it but when I wore it to the rink everyone made fun of it and thought I was weird.

"It didn't really bother me that much or anything like that, but I took it back to the store because I knew I didn't want to deal with all that crap for the rest of the year. It wasn't worth it.

"And the thing is it wasn't like I never got along with anybody. I always had friends on the team and I liked going out with the boys and doing stuff like that. But I guess I just felt like I wanted to do something different and I had a hard time going along with everything most people in hockey just accepted as the way it was."

For Drapeau, that meant refusing to give in to pressure to turn his back on his passion for music and other artistic interests. He kept it on the backburner during a sometimes tumultuous four-year QMJHL career with four different teams but couldn't help letting it bubble to the surface during his four years as a pro in the minor leagues.

"By the time I was playing pro I didn't hang out much with hockey players. I always liked meeting people away from the rink so I guess I was kind of a loner in some ways because of that," says Drapeau, who was drafted 99th overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 1996. "Some of my coaches during my career thought I had a big ego, at least that was my reputation. But it was just because I was a bit different and I've realized over the years I wasn't much of a hockey player. Maybe I had a bit of a talent to play hockey but I was always more of an artist than a player.

"I ended up quitting when I was 24 years old and I played (in a band) four or five nights a week in bars (in Quebec). That's what I did for work. Even when I played pro I was always in bands. I had one for two years in Virginia Beach and then I was with another one in Quad City (Iowa). We played rock and roll music all over town and that never helped me to be popular with coaches in pro. They would always say 'What are you doing? Do you want to be a hockey player or a rock star?'

"But I was never a problem on my teams. I was always on time for practice, I never said a word louder than anybody else, but hockey is a really conservative world. I remember in junior when I got my ear pierced, everyone went nuts. I realized over the years I wasn't made to be a hockey player."

After grinding it out on the bar scene in his home province for two-and-a-half years, Drapeau eventually got his big break when he appeared on the wildly popular Quebec television show Star Academie. It launched his career as a minor celebrity in French Canada and has opened countless doors for him in the show business world.

"The show is a phenomenon here in Quebec. I don't say that because I was part of it or because I think it was because of me it is so popular. Definitely not. It's just that it's huge here," says Drapeau, who twice performed live in front of crowds of 50,000-plus during his time on the show. "It's like a Quebec version of American Idol. There were over 7,000 people who auditioned for it and I was one of the 14 finalists. There are maybe seven million people in Quebec, and every Sunday there were three million people watching the show. That's almost one out of every two people in the province watching so it was a big change in my life when I did that.

"And I don't want to sound conceited or anything like that when I say this because that's not how I mean it, but almost everybody in Quebec knows who you are after you've been on Star Academie. It's such a huge thing and there are magazine covers and newspapers and everything. So when I got out of there it was easier to go after other stuff for my career. I went after everything. I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be on TV and that's what's happened for me."

Drapeau has since gone on to get work as a model, commercial actor and is planning to release a CD of original music some time in the next year or two. He also landed a role on the Quebec TV show Virginie and has his own production company. He currently has almost 40 concert dates booked this summer with a touring act of ex-Star Academie performers called "Etienne and his guests."

But his latest pursuit has taken him back to his hockey roots. He will appear once every two weeks on RDS - the french version of TSN - as a journalist covering the lives of QMJHL players. The first segment aired last week.

"When we talked about what kind of reports I would do they said they wanted to try to use my personality and repuation as a hockey player and as a musician to promote hockey. I thought it was a great idea and I wanted to use my experiences and my (impressions) of the life of a hockey player to tell stories about people. I'm not interested in talking about goals and assists and things like that. I want people to see the human side of the game."

Part of him laughs at the irony of coming full circle to work as a journalist covering the QMJHL but the other side of him embraces it because he now has the opportunity to tell the kinds of stories that he thinks should've been told more back when he was struggling with his identity.

"You know, fans see the game on the ice and that's their focus and there's nothing wrong with that. But players have lives just like everybody else. They have girlfriends and families and friends and school and they have to deal with those things the same as anybody else. I want to show that stuff that goes on away from the rink because you don't usually get to see that.

"I hope people watch it and get something out of it."