Éric LeMarque

Éric Lemarque played for the French national team at the 1994 Winter Olympics and the 1994 and 1995 World Championships. Although of French nationality he lived in the United States and played in college at Northern Michigan University from 1986-90. Lemarque played professionally from 1990-99 in both France and the United States, playing with various minor league teams in the USA, including the Greensboro Monarchs, Los Angeles Blades, Tampa Bay Rollin’ Thunder, and the Arkansas Glacier Cats. In France he played with Rouen HC and Brest HC, and briefly played in Germany in 1997-98 with Pfaffenhofen EC. He settled in the Los Angeles area, eventually working as a hockey coach in California.

In February 2004, Lemarque was snowboarding on Mammoth Mountain, California when he became disoriented and got lost and spent eight days alone in the cold wilderness, surviving on a diet of pine nuts, bark and bubble gum and sleeping on pine branches to keep dry. He eventually had both lower legs amputated because of frostbite from the ordeal.