Justin Carbonneau spent as much time on the football field as he did on the ice growing up.

“I used to play football with my brother, so we’re both ex-football players,” said Carbonneau, who had to step away from the game to focus solely on hockey when he started high school. “I think I was pretty good. … I love to play football and those hits and all that. I was linebacker on defense and running back on offense.”

The 18-year-old power forward plays with a football mentality, blending physical play with a high-end skill set that helped him finish second in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League with 89 points and tie for second with 46 goals in 62 games with Blainville-Boisbriand this season.

“I’m a big power forward who likes to hit, to skate,” Carbonneau (6-foot-1, 205 pounds) said. “I have good vision, but I’m mostly a shooter, power forward.”

His shot is something he continually works on, with an emphasis on variety and deception as well as power. He tries to watch Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs and David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins for things to add to his game.

“It’s all about shooting pucks, but with a purpose,” he said. “Like shooting only post-in, shooting in a different direction, different shooting stride, shooting in motion, all that. It’s different tools you work at on the ice, but off the ice too, that helps you have a better season.

“Matthews I think, has one of the best kind of shooting motions, a toe drag and all that. Pastrnak is really good with his poise; [Artemi] Panarin too. It doesn’t take the best shots to kind of snipe it bar-down. Sometimes it’s about your deception and those guys are really good at it.”

Blainville-Boisbriand assistant coach Maxim Noreau has been helping Carbonneau work on fine-tuning that shot.

“My biggest thing to him from the beginning of the season, it was trying to make him understand that he’s been able to rely solely on the shooting part, and not so much on the scoring IQ or the variables that are involved in that, like manipulating the goalie, different timing, maybe a delay on your shot,” Noreau said. “I call it tempo shooting, where goalies get to find your rhythm, and can you throw them off.

“He’s got just such a good release, such a heavy shot even when he’s off balance. For him, it was like just powering through and putting it in the right spot. So we worked a lot on fake and a push and changing the angle, especially on the power play or off the rush, how to maybe change that D’s stick or stuff like that … and then that powerful shot can come through. And with the more reps he’s getting at that in the game, the percentage he’s going to score is going to go way up.”

It’s been a consistent upward climb for Carbonneau, who had 59 points (31 goals, 28 assists) in 68 games in 2023-24.

Carbonneau said one of the big changes he made following that season was on his recovery after games and on off-days. That’s allowed him to feel better on game days and amplify his skill even more.

“He’s been more involved and in a better position to receive the puck,” Blainville-Boisbriand general manager Olivier Picard said. “As soon as he has a puck on his blade, he’s dangerous. … He was competing the year before also to get loose pucks and everything, but now his strength is becoming even better than the other guys. So he wins more battles and everything and that helps.

“He’s smart. He sees plays that others don’t, so that’s really an asset for him offensively. His vision, and he still has a shoot-first mentality. He wants to score goals, but he can make plays also.”

A purpose-built arena can ignite a region

My own journey started knocking on doors, selling season tickets for a struggling Washington Capitals franchise — selling the experience, not just the team.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

I believed in the game. Watching hockey live creates lifelong fans and unforgettable memories.

Years later, I led marketing efforts when the Capital Centre gave way to a new downtown D.C. arena. That venue didn’t just give the team a home — it helped revitalize the surrounding area. Fans came, restaurants opened, businesses boomed, and the Capitals became one of the league’s most successful franchises.

A purpose-built arena can ignite an entire region.

Some say, “Hockey didn’t work in Atlanta.” That’s a convenient headline — but an incomplete one. The Flames and Thrashers both built passionate fan bases. What they lacked wasn’t support — it was stable leadership and proper infrastructure. This time, those pieces are in place.

Even Bettman said it on May 9: “It’s a different place than when the Flames and Thrashers left… I don’t think the prior two visits have any bearing on whether or not we would go back — if all the other pieces… were put together.” Today, NHL viewership in North Atlanta is 20% higher than the national average, according to the NHL to Atlanta X account.

While there’s no formal NHL application process, the league has indicated that a market that checks every box might just earn a meeting with the commissioner. Does Georgia have that project? I believe so. The Gathering at South Forsyth not only has everything required to be a new home for hockey, but also for live entertainment, dining, shopping and living.

Six reasons South Forsyth should be home to an NHL team

The Gathering at South Forsyth is a $3 billion, privately funded, mixed-use development with a next-generation, NHL-ready arena at its heart. Think of it as The Battery 2.0. I remember the early skepticism around The Braves and the Battery: “Traffic.” “Parking.” “Suburban location.” And now? It’s a national model, often called the gold standard. The Gathering will follow that same winning formula — only this time, with ice.

Here are the facts:

No stone has been left unturned.

In my career, I’ve never seen a private sports and entertainment effort this far along, this well-located, and this strategically executed. Auto dealership CEO and philanthropist Vernon Krause and his team, who are pushing for the NHL in Forsyth County, aren’t pitching a concept — they’re offering a solution. They are shovel-ready today, not years from now.

Atlanta is already a top 10 sports market and home to the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, Dream, Vibe, United, Swarm, a deep college sports culture, and premier events from the Super Bowl to the upcoming FIFA World Cup. The one hole in the lineup? The NHL.

Hockey fans are a different breed. We travel. We live and die by sudden-death overtime. No other sport has a community-driven fan base like hockey. Georgia has a strong undercurrent of these fans — still here and moving here, still hungry after 13 long years. Bringing hockey back would complete Atlanta’s roster and tap into a sport that’s quietly thriving here — from youth leagues and adult rec teams to sellouts for the minor league Gladiators in Gwinnett. Hockey’s here. We just need a team.

We’re ready. I’ve seen firsthand what a team and the right arena can do for a community.

This is our moment. South Forsyth is the place. Let’s bring the NHL back — and this time, let’s do it right.

Dale Kaetzel is an Atlanta resident and the former president of Six Flags Atlanta Properties, and a lifelong hockey fan whose career includes the NHL Capitals, MLB SF Giants, venue management, thousands of live events and eight different theme parks across North America.

The SEC is on top, right? Well at least in football they think they are, if the debate around the College Football Playoff last year was any indication. But it appears that the supposed top conference in the country has that same delusion across all their sports, most recently claiming the throne in college baseball. There’s just one tiny problem: In the College World Series, which starts on Friday, only two teams from the SEC will be battling it out for a national championship. 

We noticed it in the College Football Playoff and now it’s bleeding into baseball: The pedestal the SEC has gotten comfortable on might not be as lofty as everyone had assumed. The rest of the conferences are starting to catch up.

Texas was eliminated by UTSA in its Regional, Vanderbilt was eliminated by Wright State and Arkansas took out the defending champions in Tennessee. Of the eight teams headed to Omaha, just two are from the SEC, a far cry from what the conference’s supporters were predicting on Selection Sunday.

The College World Series is more proof of the SEC’s dominance in college athletics … or lack thereof

The SEC has long felt it was a level above everybody else. Yet, it’s now up to Arkansas and LSU to keep the conference’s dominance alive. It won’t be easy though; after all, Coastal Carolina might be the strongest team in the field, coming in on a 23-game win streak and having dispatched Auburn on the road in the Super Regional.

What makes the SEC only having two teams reach the CWS so remarkable is that the conference sent 13 teams to the NCAA Tournament. Sure, there was some friendly fire, with SEC teams taking each other out, but it was far from a dominant performance regardless.

This is similar to basketball, too, where the SEC had14 teams that reached the field of 68 only to watch most of them flame out on opening weekend. While Florida did win a national championship this year, it doesn’t absolve the conference from losing ground to the other conferences. The only thing that would keep them from yet another embarrassing postseason is to win the whole thing in Omaha.

It won’t be easy, either. The CWS field is loaded with talent, and the sport has seen a record amount of parity over the last few years, per a CBS Sports story. 

The SEC isn’t as strong as it once was, and now it’s bleeding into baseball. The SEC can’t say it’s the best conference in the country. They went 2-for-13 in getting teams to the CWS, and the reigning champions won’t get a chance to defend their title. That tells you everything you need to know about SEC “dominance”.

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An NCAA gymnast launched himself into the debate about male athletes in women’s sports following Olympian Simone Biles’ remarks about activist Riley Gaines.

Samuel Phillips, a gymnast at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, weighed in on Biles’ remarks after she called Gaines a “sore loser” for losing to a man (Lia Thomas) and “truly sick” for campaigning against the inclusion of men in women’s sports.

Phillips not only piled on and threw more insults at Gaines, but he also made a bold claim about how Biles would fair in competitions against men.

‘She would actually STEAL GOLDS from LOTS of the best Male floor and vault workers.’

“This whole fight between Riley and Simone is NULL & VOID because the basis of the right’s attack is that she would lose medals in the men’s gym category,” Phillips wrote on X. “When in reality, she would actually STEAL GOLDS from LOTS of the best Male floor and vault workers. So their base is FLAWED.”

Blaze News reached out to Jennifer Sey, a seven-time U.S. women’s national artistic gymnast, to ask for her thoughts on how Biles would perform against men.

“I think it speaks more so to the fact that women’s gymnastics has changed. It’s about power not grace and flexibility,” Sey replied.

RELATED: She’s never had to compete against a man’: Female athletes respond to Simone Biles’ pro-trans rant

The XX-XY Clothing founder told Blaze News that now that men’s and women’s gymnastics are less differentiated than before, men would be “much more likely to be able to compete in women’s and win.”

Sey added, “What Phillips states is unknowable, but he’s not wrong that Simone’s skill level is otherworldly. That doesn’t change the fact that men are stronger and more powerful overall, and if men entered women’s gymnastics, they would displace women from medals and team spots.”

Following his remarks about how well Gaines would do against men, Phillips launched his own attacks at Gaines on X, as well.

“Also Null and Void because Riley G.B. is in fact an evil spirited, loser mentality, unreliable, misinformed, hateful person.”

Phillips then turned off replies to his remarks, while lashing out at Republicans on X.

“Muting the replies because every Maga cult member who comments on this has Baseless Arguments so elementary and rooted in fear. Nothing to debate about. You’re just here to fight and insight [sic] violence. Goodbye.”

Although Biles issued an apology to Gaines, and Phillips shared it, he did not issue an apology or retraction of his own.

RELATED: Simone Biles apologizes to Riley Gaines for ‘personal’ attack but still falls short of admitting the obvious

In response to Biles’ apology, Gaines said that while she accepted it, she thought some of the gymnast’s ideas were “nonsensical.”

Gaines welcomed Biles to fight alongside her in the fight to “support fair sports.”

Biles has not issued anymore public comments, and her press team has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Blaze News.

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