Bellemare playing with a heavy heart after his mother's passing

When a young Pierre-Edouard Bellemare started playing ice hockey, he didn't have a bag filled with brand new equipment. He wasn't shooting pucks with the latest, state of the art stick. For much of his childhood, he grew up playing the game with a third-string pair of skates that were so small his feet would curl up inside the boots.
But without those skates, Bellemare probably wouldn't be playing in the NHL. And without the relentless hard work and dedication from his single mother, Frederique, he probably never would have had those skates to begin with.

"My mom's involvement was huge," said Bellemare. "We started playing hockey right around the time my father decided he wasn't going to show up anymore. Once we decided to start skating, it became really clear that, because of our financial situation, we didn't have the money for it. But my mom always found solutions."
Bellemare started playing hockey when he was six and a half years old, along with his brother Geoffroy-Alexis, who was 10 at the time. Their mother did whatever was necessary to allow her two sons to play hockey, even while raising three daughters as well. But it wasn't about the money for Frederique. She just wanted her boys to obey one life lesson both on and off the ice - always give 110%.
"Eventually, things got to be really hard on the family from a financial standpoint," said Bellemare. "Sometimes, it was even as simple as paying the fee to play hockey for the year. I think it was something like $55 to play for the whole year. That was difficult for us to afford.
"But she always supported us more than just the financial aspect. She was like, 'Alright, you guys want to do this? I'm going to make sure that you're able to do it.'
"But right from the get-go, my brother and I learned that we needed to put 110% into it because, otherwise, that money could go towards food.
"She made us understand that we had to give 110% all the time. You can have fun, but you're going to work hard at it. Otherwise, that's it, you're done.
"Right away, that mentality came from my mom. It's a fun sport. I'm going to have fun. But I'm also going to give 110%. Otherwise, it's not worth it."
As Bellemare's talent continued to grow, Frederique did whatever she could to make sure he was able to play against top competition. The 30-minute drive to practice turned to an hour when Bellemare outgrew his first team and moved onto a team one town over to play.
Then, he outgrew that team. The drive to practice had gone from 30 minutes to 70 minutes over the span of a couple years. And as hard as it was on the family financially, Frederique always made it work.
"Luckily enough, it wasn't like the United States where you have three practices a week," Bellemare explained. "I had one practice a week until I turned 11 years old. Thank God, because otherwise, I don't think I would have been able to play.
"We always had people that helped us along the way. But this was all because of the support that my mom had. She wouldn't quit. She was determined to give us a real chance.
"As long as we gave 110%, she was okay with it. She was the toughest supporter out there."
The work ethic of Frederique clearly rubbed off on her son. You can even see it in the way Bellemare plays the game with a "never give up" type attitude. Growing up, working hard and making his mom proud was everything for Bellemare.
"When I was young, I could see her after a game and just the way she would move her hand to tell me if I played good or bad - it could've brought me to tears," said Bellemare. "Not because she was like, 'You didn't score any goals,' but because I would feel like I didn't work hard enough in that game."
Bellemare wasn't only exhibiting his work ethic while he was on the ice. His hard work was on display in all aspects of life, including when he'd go out dive hunting for octopus during summer vacations.
Some of his Bellemare's fondest memories were made diving for octopus. Originally scared of going in the water, he found feelings of courage and excitement in facing his fear of diving.
Bellemare's entire family would go camping in a huge tent. They had a mini fridge and a table they would consistently bring that were the same age as Pierre-Edouard. Some of the best memories came from the eating the food made by his mother, who was an excellent cook.
"We all had some things we would do during those trips and one of mine was dive hunting," Bellemare said. "Octopus was the big thing. For eight years, it was my job to go and find octopus. I had a whole scuba suit. Once again, we didn't really have any money, so I don't know how the heck she got away with getting that suit.
"To the north of Spain, close to France, there's a place we used to go all the time. And there's an island really close to it, like maybe a half hour swim. I was in my suit, with the buoy and everything, and I completely lost track of where the time went.
"So, I'm swimming back and I see this huge octopus, like two and a half kilos, which is about five and a half pounds. He was a big boy, and I could tell he was already struggling a little bit. So, I'm like, 'Alright, I'm hunting it. And I'm getting it.'
"When I finally came home, the sun was on its way down, so I'd been in the water for at least five hours. At that time, I was 13, so my mom was not supposed to let me get that far by myself. She couldn't see the buoy. She was pretty mad.
"Then, I just brought up the bag, my fishing net, and there is that gigantic, brownish, grayish thing in it. She's like, 'Don't tell me that's an octopus!'
"I'm like, 'Oh yeah, it's the biggest octopus. The biggest one.'
"She just had the biggest smile on her face and gave me the biggest hug. I didn't realize in that moment, and a lot of these moments growing up, it was important for her to not have to worry about protein and stuff like this.
"It was just a really fun memory because, that night, it was just all about how mad she was and how happy she became when I pulled up that bag. It wasn't because I came back, but she was happy because of what I had in my basket. For whatever reason, that's just one of the great memories I have.'
That same work ethic earned Bellemare the opportunity to play professional hockey in Sweden in his early 20s. Bellemare was in school at the time, but when this chance arose for her son, Frederique knew he had to go. She pushed him to make the move and take full advantage of the opportunity at hand.
"It was tough," said Bellemare on his arrival in Sweden. "It was difficult. Nobody liked me. My teammates barely talked to me. The coach didn't like me. I could tell.
"But my mom was like, 'Just show those kids how spoiled they are. Show them. You don't come from a lot of money, so just show them how happy you are to be there.'
"My mom Google translated a story on the team I was playing for. She found the story in some newspaper, and it said the team had issues every year with players from other countries that would come over just to grab a salary. Then, they wouldn't play the right way.
"She was like, 'You're not there for the money. Show them that. Learn the country. Learn the language. In a year from now, you will be speaking three languages.'
"At that time, I couldn't even speak English. I remember thinking in my head, 'Shut up, mom. It's not true.'
"But she was right. I did learn three languages in a year. I came to the rink every day with a smile on my face, like I still do to this day. Because of that, I've signed contracts where coaches and GMs were like, 'You know what? We like what you bring to the room. We need that. We don't have enough of that.'
"Then, hockey started taking over after that. My mom was always giving me advice without knowing it. I think she knew she was giving me advice, but I'm not sure if she knew the power of that advice."
After Frederique had won a previous battle with breast cancer, she received word in early October of 2022, just before the start of the NHL season, that she had been diagnosed with cancer a second time, but this time it was in both her lungs and liver.
"I got the news October 3 that cancer was back, and it was not the breast cancer that she had before," Bellemare shared. "It was her lungs and liver. And from that point on, when you're talking to doctors, you start to see the looks on their faces change.
"When they tell you it's breast cancer, they tell you it's dangerous. But they also tell you that it's going to be well taken care of.
"When tell you it's in those two other organs, you can suddenly tell how different things are right away. It's not about how she's going to beat it. It's more about how long she has left to live."
On November 24, the Lightning announced that Bellemare was taking a personal leave of absence from the team. The news was never made public, but he was traveling back to France to see his mother one last time, to say goodbye.
Back in Tampa on the following day, the Bolts battled the St. Louis Blues at AMALIE Arena and skated to a 5-2 victory behind multi-point efforts from Brandon Hagel, Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, Nick Paul, Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos.
Immediately following the win, Stamkos made his way down the tunnel and through the doors that lead to the locker room. As the captain caught his breath from the hard work of the evening, he placed his stick on the stick rack and turned to head into the locker room.
But just as he went to walk into the room, Stamkos paused for a moment, turned around and headed back towards the training and equipment rooms. Making his way back to the locker room moments later, he had one thing in his hands - a number 41, Bellemare jersey.

"In those last weeks of my mom's life, I went home to see my mom in the emergency room to say goodbye to her. She was not doing good at all," Bellemare shared. "Then one morning, after we played St. Louis at home, Stammer decided to get all the boys together in the locker room and take a picture with my jersey in the middle of everyone.
"It was just a small gesture at the end of the game, but that morning was not a good one for my mom. There were a lot of the things that she'd done her whole life. She just couldn't do a lot of those things anymore. She had to have her kids take care of her like she was a newborn child, so it was complicated.
"That morning, I didn't even bother to look at the score of the game. I wasn't on my phone at all. Then, I took my phone and saw the message. I saw that picture of the boys and it gave me a little smile.
"I was thinking, 'Should I show this to her, or shouldn't I show it to her? Because I don't know if this is what she needs right now. Maybe a hockey game and the team aren't things she should be worried about right now.'
"But I showed it to her. Her first reaction was a huge smile, and I was like, 'Oh, that's pretty cool.'
"At that time, she had some moments where she was there and some other moments when she wasn't there. I really felt like the rest of that day was decided for her because of what happened that morning. Right away, she was like, 'You know what? I'm hungry. I want to eat,' when she hadn't been eating for days.
"That was the first time that I realized the effect that we can have on people, like fully. I was the one on the receiving end of that."
Naturally, when Bellemare returned to Tampa, things weren't easy. Usually the loudest guy in the room with an unmatched energy, Bellemare was quiet. He didn't want to smile. He didn't want to be happy. He didn't want to play hockey.
But he knew that his mother would want him to. And whether he knew it or not, his teammates were ready to have his back the whole way.
"When she passed away, that was the most difficult game I've ever played after that," said Bellemare. "Everything in my body was telling me, 'Don't play this game.'
"But then, everything in my mind told me that's not what she would want. She would want me to shake it off and make her proud.
"Those two games were huge with all the support from the guys. They were all present for every single moment. I feel like I'd never heard my name called so much when I was coming off the ice. Everybody knew what I was going through. They wanted to give me a push. It was amazing."

Following the game, Bellemare was given an award in the locker room as the hardest-working player of the game. Doing his best to fight back tears, he shared that when he returned home to say his final goodbye, his mother told him, "Come on now. I'm fighting. You've got to fight too. Stop using me as an excuse."
"That hit hard," Bellemare told his teammates in the locker room before thanking them for their continued support. "I thanked everybody."
As hard as it was playing in the game, what came afterwards may have been even harder. Following every single game, Bellemare would always call his mother on his drive home. But on that night, he couldn't.
"We talked every day, or sometimes every other day because of the games," Bellemare said. "That's why, when she passed away, the toughest part has been being in the car. I always talked to her in the car.
"She thought of every single player as her son. We would talk, and I'd be on the way to practice, and she'd be like, 'Woah! Did you see Stammer had a hat trick?' Or like, 'Wow! Heddy, what a shot! I just saw that this morning!'
"Obviously, at the end, a lot of our talks were about her health situation, but she was always such a strong supporter for everybody on the team.
"If I scored or did something great, it was never about me. I was never like, 'I'm happy because I scored.' I was happy because I knew that the next day, it was going to make her day that much better.
"This has been the most difficult part. To this day, the car is still a place where it's really difficult to be by myself. Talking to her had just become something so natural.
"She had great advice about everything. I left home when I was 16, so I didn't feel the need to talk to my mom that much. But when my wife and I had kids, I wanted to tell her all about them. I wanted her to be a part of it, even if I was so far away."
In his second game following his return from France, Bellemare made a big impact when he took a pass in the high slot from Nick Perbix before leaning into his stick and firing a shot past Jonathan Quick for his third goal of the season.
After an embrace from his four teammates on the ice, Bellemare skated towards the bench, kissed his glove, and looked up towards the rafters as he pointed to the sky.

"It was a really weird feeling because I didn't feel like I wanted to be happy at all," shared Bellemare. "When I scored that goal, my first thought was, 'Well, who am I going to tell?'
"When I score a goal, my first feeling is always, 'She's going to be so happy!'
"I score between five to eight goals a season. Those are eight memorable days during a season. I didn't feel like being happy at all, but I also felt like, 'Oh my God, she's actually right there pushing me.'
"I felt grateful. I felt like telling her thanks. So, that's what I did."
As the days hopefully continue to get easier for Bellemare, there's been one thing he's certainly been able to count on - the love and support from his Lightning teammates, coaches, and support staff.
"I've always known that this team is a really tight group of guys," Bellemare said. "It's a really great group and the playoff runs bring you closer to everyone's family. It makes you more attentive to everyone's issues.
"There are so many fathers on this team compared to some other teams I've been on. We all resonate with each other's problems.
"When you become a father, it's suddenly less about the party and the bling and all that stuff.
"It's more about your family life. My mother touched my family life, big time. I think that can resonate with everyone. I think that everybody felt my pain a little bit. It's been amazing to have that support from the guys."
After his inspirational goal helped lead Tampa Bay to a 5-2 win, Bellemare and his teammates earned some well-deserved time off for the NHL All-Star break. It was at this time that he returned back to France for his mother's funeral and began the grieving process, something that Bellemare didn't necessarily know he needed, but is now glad it happened.
"I went home and managed to start the grieving process with my family," explained Bellemare. "We have a really close family. We're really, really close.
"Somehow, going home and grieving kind of lifted a cloud from over my head. I was okay with starting the grieving process. I was okay with being happy. I was happy to see my sisters smile and talk about our kids and everything.
"My mom was a really amazing person. I realized grieving is something that's a necessary process. You don't really know you need to do it, but it's very important."
While his mother may be gone, so much of her spirit continues to live on through Bellemare. Now, his goal is to use all the life lessons he learned from his mother to impart strong values to his own children.
"Generally, I think I was a well-raised kid. I have table manners that can beat anybody in the league," Bellemare said with a laugh. "My education has always been built on being a respectful and polite person. I am really disciplined in a way.
"All of that starts from when my mom told me to give 110%. It's not just about fun. Now, the most challenging part is trying to raise my kids. I want to raise them the same way she raised us, but without all of the struggles that we had to go through. In a way, those struggles teach you a lot of lessons.

"My kids will hopefully never go through any of that, but I still have to teach them those same values. If my kids can become a little bit like me and my wife, without having the struggles we had to go through, we'll have done an amazing job as parents.
"Right now, it's still complicated to think about raising my kids without my mom. It's just something that we'd all looked forward to. But I was lucky enough that my oldest child is five, so he knows who his grandma is.
"My youngest child is three. She may not remember how she got some of the values she has, but it will be easier to tell her it was because of her grandma.
"I can't sit here and complain, I've had an amazing life because of my mom and how she raised me. I was lucky enough to bring children into my mom's life to make her happy."