Personal Life
Laraque's parents were both born in Haiti. He is known as "Big Georges" or simply "BGL". Laraque became a vegan in 2009 to protest animal abuse by the meat industry. He owns two raw vegan restaurants called Crudessence.
In the off-season, Laraque resides in Edmonton, which he considers his home away from home. On Fridays during the off-season, Laraque can often be heard hosting The Team 1260, an afternoon radio sports program in Edmonton. Laraque also commits a lot of his time to local charity work to help the local people of Edmonton, Pittsburgh, and in response to the 2010 earthquake, the people of Haiti.
In February 2010, Laraque was announced as a "goodwill ambassador" for TekSavvy Solutions, an internet and landline phone provider based in Chatham, Ontario.
In 2011, Laraque took part in the CBC's Canada Reads literary competition as the celebrity defender for author Angie Abdou's The Bone Cage.
Laraque struggled as a young black athlete in a predominately white sport. He faced numerous challenges growing up, and was always forced to deal with the racism around him. The racism got so bad and hate-filled when finally Laraque’s dad pulled him out of hockey for a year when he was 12. Laraque loved hockey and decided to play again despite the fact that he was treated poorly by his opponents, who swore and spit at him on the ice. Laraque was widely known for fighting in the NHL, which he learned out of necessity as he grew up always having to defend himself. Laraque dedicated the fact that he made the NHL to all the people that verbally abused him growing up.
On May 21, 2010, Laraque squared off with world welterweight mixed martial arts champion Georges St.-Pierre for 3 rounds of grappling for takedowns on TSN TV show Off The Record. Laraque did not score a single takedown.
On November 8, 2011, Laraque released his first book, an autobiography entitled "Georges Laraque: The story of the NHL's unlikliest tough guy".
On July 9, 2012, Perry Boskus, president of a Florida-based company that produced synthetic ice sheets that Laraque sold in Canada, issued a a press release accusing Laraque of fraud. One day later, Boskus retracted the fraud allegations.
Read more about this topic: Georges Laraque
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