{"id":536032,"date":"2026-03-14T14:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536032\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:22:08","slug":"jaxxon-brashear-son-of-notorious-nhl-enforcer-donald-hoping-to-punch-in-cfl-weight-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536032\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaxxon Brashear, son of notorious NHL enforcer Donald, hoping to punch in CFL weight class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Greg Mason\/Ottawa Gee-Gees<\/p>\n

Jaxxon Brashear was eight years old when his father, Donald, played his final NHL game. At the time, his mother didn\u2019t allow him to watch the bloody work that the notorious goon did on the ice, but those scenes have become familiar in the years since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen it all, heard it all. Even if I don\u2019t watch it, someone\u2019s gonna show it to me,\u201d Brashear grinned in a recent sitdown with 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone talks about how good he was, but I never saw it myself, so it\u2019s fun to see him at his craft. Yes, he was a fighter, but it\u2019s fun to see the technique he used, how he did it. He\u2019s always told me he mastered it. It wasn\u2019t just punching and taking punches; it was finding a way to keep distance and punching at the right moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a decade and a half later, the moment has come for the next Brashear to take his swing at the professional level. However, Jaxxon delivers knockout blows of a different variety than his famous father, having chosen to chart his path on the gridiron at the University of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

The CFL prospect did grow up playing hockey in Quebec, but stepped out of his skates partway through high school. At the time, he found his enjoyment diminished by the expectations of a man who had played 1,025 NHL games with five different franchises.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came to a point where I didn\u2019t feel like I wanted the competitiveness of hockey as much as he did back in the day. He was a very big critic. He\u2019d come and yell at me from the side while I was on the ice,\u201d Brashear recalled. \u201cWhen I switched over to football, I knew the physical aspect would be there, but it gave me more of an opportunity to grow by myself in a sport and make my own name. Instead of being that person\u2019s son, I\u2019m this person in that sport instead of his sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being raised by a professional athlete wasn\u2019t without challenges. His parents split up when he was young, and Jaxxon remembers many weekends with dad waylaid by impromptu autograph sessions. The external pressure to live up to his surname has never fazed him, but it was different when the call was coming from inside the house.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Donald instilled in his son many of the traits that have allowed him to start carving his own legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, it was discipline. He showed us how to be proper-minded and to know where we\u2019re going in life. That\u2019s why, I think, sports-wise, I\u2019ve always had it pretty easy,\u201d Jaxxon remarked. \u201cFor me, it was more natural than others. I\u2019ve always had the discipline, and I\u2019ve worked out since I was young. He showed us how to be more autonomous, be more mature, and I think that\u2019s a big thing that allowed me to be who I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Football became a manifestation of that autonomy. Brashear admits that he initially only told his mother when he chose to try the new sport over hockey, keeping his dad in the dark. The move came as a surprise, but Donald was quick to embrace it once he found out.<\/p>\n

Giving up on being an overbearing sports dad was somewhat more difficult, but the longtime pugilist was quickly put in his place.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did try a couple of times to go behind the bench and talk to me during games. I told him, \u2018Go in the stands like everybody else. You don\u2019t know nothing about football,’\u201d Jaxxon laughed. \u201cHe ended up going to the stands, and he quite liked it. It actually brought him and my stepdad a lot closer. They come to the games, and they cheer on together, and it\u2019s quite nice to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo courtesy: Christophe Renaud<\/p>\n

Brashear was a jack of all trades early in his football journey, catching passes, handling wildcat quarterback duties, returning kicks, and punting for his team. At C\u00e9gep Limoilou, he would specialize and develop into an elite cornerback prospect, which earned him an opportunity in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

The Quebec City native has since undergone a physical transformation. Checking in at 185 pounds in his first year with the Gee-Gees, he\u2019s slowly added weight as he developed from a depth special teamer into a starter at safety and eventually a standout strong-side linebacker. Now standing at six-foot-one and 225 pounds, CFL scouts don\u2019t believe his future lies in the secondary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard that some people think I might be more of a MIKE backer based on the size, but due to my previous positions, I feel like I\u2019d be able to play WILL backer as well and move out in space,\u201d Brashear said. \u201cFor me, it won\u2019t be an issue. Whatever they give me, I\u2019ll learn. I\u2019ve gained 40 pounds since I\u2019ve been in uni, so I\u2019m not going back to DB, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being inside the box means being closer to the action, which suits Brashear just fine. He had a career year for the Gee-Gees in 2025 after moving into a hybrid role, getting in on 54 total tackles, two tackles for loss, two sacks, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and a pair of interceptions. He added 10 more tackles to lead the team in their playoff loss to Windsor and was named a first-team OUA all-star.<\/p>\n

Perhaps appropriately, the demands of his new position have brought his style of play closer to that of his enforcer father, who amassed 2,634 career penalty minutes and fought 277 times in the NHL. Jaxxon doesn\u2019t drop the gloves, but referees may not love his favoured alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of using my fists, I quite like using my head. I\u2019ve got a bit more protection on my head, and I can just hit with that,\u201d Brashear joked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played more on instincts, like me. We play a very similar game; it\u2019s hard to say what is different. It\u2019s just mainly how we use our bodies. I think I\u2019m more athletic compared to him. He was more of a goon, standing and fighting. He did boxing before. For me, it\u2019s a lot more moving around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brashear has his father\u2019s number 87 tattooed on his right bicep and has also adopted his pre-game process, focusing on visualizing success. There will undoubtedly be much of that going on as he prepares for the next steps in his journey towards the professional ranks at the CFL Combine in Edmonton later this month.<\/p>\n

Size, mobility, and special teams projection make Brashear a bona fide 2026 draft prospect, projected to go anywhere from the mid to late rounds. Strong testing numbers and solid performances in practices could cement him on the higher end of that span, as he looks to prove that he is improving on the finer points of inside linebacker play, like sorting through traffic and shedding blocks.<\/p>\n

The opportunity is finite, but if his father has taught Brashear anything, it\u2019s how to strike at the right moment to get momentum on your side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Greg Mason\/Ottawa Gee-Gees Jaxxon Brashear was eight years old when his father, Donald, played his final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,203968,168653,101690,209704,527,168665,209705,5239,168669,2002,448,20739,82],"class_list":["post-536032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-cfl-combine","tag-cfl-draft","tag-donald-brashear","tag-enforcer","tag-football","tag-gee-gees","tag-goon","tag-hockey","tag-jaxxon-brashear","tag-league","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}