Playing Career
Benoit played five years of junior hockey with the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). He was not drafted by any NHL team but was signed by the Hamilton Bulldogs of the American Hockey League (AHL) in the summer of 2005. Benoit began his professional career in the 2005–06 season with the Bulldogs and was signed in 2006 a three-year entry level contract with the Montreal Canadiens, the NHL parent team of the Bulldogs. He spent the rest of that season and the entirety of the next season with Hamilton, helping the Bulldogs capture the Calder Cup.
After his three-year deal expired in 2007, Benoit continued his career in Europe, playing one season with Tappara Tampere of the SM-liiga in 2007–08, followed by one season with Södertälje SK of the Swedish Elite League.
Benoit returned to North America in 2009, signing a one-year contract with the Canadiens in May 2009 and playing most of the 2009–10 season with their AHL farm club in Hamilton.
In the 2010 off-season, Benoit left the Canadiens organization and signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Ottawa Senators. He failed to make the NHL team out of training camp and was assigned to its AHL affiliate in Binghamton. He was called up to Ottawa in February 2011 and played in eight regular season games. He was returned to Binghamton for the post-season, helping Binghamton win the 2011 Calder Cup.
In the 2011 off-season Benoit returned to Europe, signing a one-year contract with Spartak Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League.
On July 1, 2012, during the NHL's first day of free agency, Benoit rejoined the Ottawa Senators organization, signing a one year two-way deal. Benoit played with Binghamton during the 2012–13 NHL lockout and started the season with Ottawa once the lockout concluded in January of 2013. He scored his first NHL goal on February 19, 2013, against goaltender Rick DiPietro as Ottawa defeated the New York Islanders 3-1.
A fire destroyed the St-Albert Cheese Factory in Benoit's hometown of St. Albert, Ontario in February of 2013, leaving 125 people – roughly one fifth of the town’s population – out of work for the foreseeable future. Benoit, who worked at the factory as a teenager, responded by donating a pair of tickets to the Senators' Hockey Day in Canada game against the Winnipeg Jets to each employee affected by the fire.
Read more about this topic: Andre Benoit
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or career:
“Tony Abbott: I didn’t know you played a saxophone.
Joe Pendleton: Yeah, well, a lot of people don’t know it. Even after they see me playing it they don’t know it.”
—Seton I. Miller (1902–1974)
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)