Former NHL defenseman Jason Demers gets identity stolen and signed to a contract!

On Wednesday afternoon, the Petroliers of Laval in the North American Hockey League announced with great fanfare that they had managed to signed a veteran of 700 games of experience in the NHL with their team, veteran defenseman Jason Demers. The team’s official page on Facebook shared the news, in French which if you speak it, you can read below:

This was, according to many, the biggest signing in league history since the NHL lockout. The only issue is that Demers quickly denied he has signed with the Petroliers, explaining on his own personnal Facebook page that he never inked a team in the NAHL.

“This is not true at all. I don’t know who made this announcement haha! I apologize to the Laval fans but I will not play anywhere except a friendly league in the future. False announcement .” -Jason Demers

That’s when the Petroliers realized they had never spoken to Demers. They had to retract their announcement by releasing an official statement in which they explained they had been victims of a deception when someone pretended to be the former NHL player to negotiate with them and even sign an official contract (originally in French, translated here below) :

“Thinking they were in discussions with Jason Demers for several days, the Petroliers of Laval announced the signing of the former NHL player. Having received the contract signed on October 31, 2023, the Petroliers forwarded the document to the league for approval before announcing it publicly this Wednesday, November 1. A few minutes after the announcement, the real Jason Demers denied the news by claiming on social networks that he had not signed an agreement with the LNAH organization. After investigation, the team realized that they had been deceived and are now considering taking legal action against the individual concerned who used forgeries.

"For now, Petroliers’ management wishes to publicly apologize to Jason Demers and his loved ones, to the league teams as well as to its partners and to the precious supporters of the Petroliers and the LNAH.”

Needless to say, this is an extremely embarrassing situation for both the team and the league. I have no clue how it could be possible to get fooled by a fake former NHL player and get him to sign a contract after several days of negotiations when Demers is represented by agent Patrick Morris, well known in the industry, representing several others players, such as Bo Horvat, Tom Wilson and Ryan O’Reilly.

Unfortunately, this is the second time in past weeks that the Petroliers have announced a major signing and subsequently had to retract it. At the beginning of October, an announcement was made that Laval had signed forward Émile Poirier, only he finally signed in Finland.

At the start of the 2023-24 season, it was revealed that Demers was unlikely to resume his playing career in the NHL. He put up 45 goals and 169 assists over 700 NHL contests between the San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Arizona Coyotes and Edmonton Oilers during his career, which began back in 2009-10.

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