The Free Press’s Helene St. James explains why they call Derek Lalonde “Newsy”:
Nicknames in hockey tend to revolve around a player’s proper name, but every now and then, a unique one comes along.
Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin (called “Larks” by teammates) laughed Thursday after the first day of training camp when asked if he knew why new head coach Derek Lalonde goes by “Newsy,” admitting to an awkward interaction.
“The first conversation, he called me and said, ‘this is Newsy’ and I was like, who?,” Larkin said. “It’s something that stuck a long time ago and it’s his name now. I still don’t know what the reference is.”
The reference is to Édouard Cyrille “Newsy” Lalonde, a former forward for the Montreal Canadiens who also enraptured his native Canada as a lacrosse player.
The Red Wings coach, 50, said the nickname began, “sometime in college.” The original “Newsy” pronounced his last name with the ‘d,’ while Lalonde is pronounced La-lone, but other than that, “it just kind of went from there. I still think there’s people to this day in Tampa that don’t even know who Derek is. They only know me as Newsy. I’m comfortable with it.”
