NHL prospect suspended after allegedly jabbing fan with stick at Olympiques game

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) has indefinitely suspended a Halifax Mooseheads player — and an NHL first-round draft pick — after he allegedly jabbed a teenaged fan with his stick following a game last week in Gatineau, Que.

Last Wednesday, the Gatineau Olympiques defeated the visiting Mooseheads in a shootout. 

Olympiques fan Holden Coulter, 16, of Blackburn Hamlet said he was among a group of people who were standing, cheering and booing at ground level after the victory.

Coulter said he yelled out "Mooseheads suck!" before left-winger Zachary L'Heureux, 19, stuck out his stick and "started jabbing at us" as he got off the ice.

"I had to back away or else he would have probably gotten me better," Coulter said. 

While Coulter said he was not hurt, he and his mother Stephanie told CBC they were speaking out in order to get the incident, the latest in a series of suspensions for L'Heureux, on the record.

"I'm not looking to tear the organization down," Holden Coulter said of the Mooseheads, adding that L'Heureux should be forced to sit out at least eight QMJHL games given his record of prior infractions. 

According to league records, L'Heureux has been suspended nine times in three seasons (including last week's incident) for everything from high sticking to fighting on the ice. He's been benched for a total of 27 games. 

"The important thing is that he gets on track and stops being such a hothead on the ice and now at ... fans," Coulter said. 

"He has a promising future ... It's just important that he get his head in the game."

CBC reached out to L'Heureux on Facebook, as well as both the Mooseheads and the NHL's Nashville Predators, which signed L'Heureux to a three-year, entry-level contract in July