Alexandre-Aimée Baker
Special to the Tribune
Local hockey coach and musician Braden Simon is currently balancing life behind the bench with a music career that is quickly gaining momentum. Simon has played hockey his entire life, but more recently he has been finding a second home on the stage in West Nipissing and across Ontario. What started as a personal passion for country music is now evolving into a full band project.
“I started with the guitar at 15, just playing casually at first,” describes Simon, who spent his early years in Blind River before relocating to Warren at age 12. Long before he was performing for festival crowds, Simon found his inspiration in his grandfather’s garage. He recalls that country music was all his grandfather played, citing Lorrie Morgan’s Except for Monday as a childhood staple.
While he spent his entire junior hockey career playing for the West Nipissing Lynx, Simon’s vocal talent remained undiscovered until a friend happened to mention it during a casual car ride. That unexpected encouragement eventually led him to begin recording his own material. What started as a series of digital releases created for fun soon paved the way for something much larger.
The transition to performing live happened rapidly in 2024 after Simon submitted a last-minute audition for the North of Nowhere emerging artist showcase. After being selected as a finalist out of over 180 applicants, he had to quickly assemble a group of musicians to back him up. “We had to throw a band together in less than a month to perform live,” he describes. With Terron Taillefer, Gabriel Taillefer, and Luis Roderick on board, the group found an immediate chemistry.
