By SEAN ROONEY on April 20, 2019.
srooney@medicinehatnews.com@MHNRooney
Some people replay a loss in their mind over and over again, wondering what they could’ve done differently.
Janick Lacroix gets to hit the replay button on his phone to do it. That’s what happens when your fight gets broadcast on national TV.
“I’ve studied a lot, I watch it just about every day,” said the 17-year-old boxer.
It’s been 59 days since Lacroix won silver at the Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, losing a controversial decision in the final to Ontario’s Mohamed Zawadi in which judges split themselves across regional lines – three from the east giving more points to Zawadi, two from the west favouring the Medicine Hat Boxing Club fighter.
“It was a close fight for sure, the fans all thought I’d won it,” said Lacroix. “I didn’t take it too much as a loss, but more as a learning experience.”
Next week, the two are in the same youth 75 kilogram division at the Canadian boxing championships in Victoria, B.C. If all goes as planned, they should meet in the final.
Lacroix wants to beat no one more than Zawadi in his quest for a second national title.
“I studied myself, studied him, studied what I could do differently to take the win this time,” said Lacroix prior to a training session Wednesday. “I look at my weaknesses, what he was doing and what I could fix. Let’s say I keep my right hand down, I see in the film he’s picking up on it; I’ll change that.
“You fix all that, you go back in the ring and it’s almost like a whole new fight..”
Lacroix’s story has been repeated in these pages before, and he doesn’t shy away from it. It’s been nearly three years since his former coach, Mike Kucik, was murdered. The aspiring Lacroix moved from Kucik’s club in Ponteix, Sask. to the Gas City, where coach Kerry Fahlman had already started working with him before the tragedy.
When Fahlman’s son Kody – himself a former national-level boxer – died tragically three days before Lacroix was to fight in last year’s final, the youngster managed to translate all the suffering around him into motivation.
Even now, he keeps a photo of Kucik with him.
“I look at it, when I lost I told him ‘that would make you proud, right?’ Every time I look at that, I’ll be like ‘this is why I’m doing this.’
“I do it for the love of the sport too, that’s what he gave me, but I do it to make him proud.”
Showing promise in football and pretty much any sport he tries, Lacroix is supremely dedicated to boxing. He talks of the Olympics and a pro career, but he’s not dumb, either. In his second year at Hat High, he’s working as a welder, building up his experience in that industry so that he’s got a career ahead of him as well as a sport.
Living on his own, coming to the boxing club pretty much every night, he knows what it takes to make his dreams come true. And he’s been relentless leading up to nationals and the potential Canada Winter Games rematch.
“Physically I’m a weight class above (the 70 kg junior title he won in 2018), so I’m a lot bigger than I was,” said Lacroix. “I feel like I’ve become smarter, I’m hitting harder, quicker, basically a lot better than I was last year.
“I’m really ready for this one.”
Nationals start Tuesday at the Westin Bear Mountain Resort and run through to Saturday. Boxing Canada says it will be live-streaming the championships on its YouTube channel.