The great year 2024 of Marie-Philip Poulin

Since her early debut with the national team, Marie-Philip Poulin has always had one obsession: hockey. At 33, buoyed by the success of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (LPHF), the Beauceronne, however, realizes “more and more” her role outside the ice rink and her ability to touch the lives of others.

Many of the Team Canada captain’s dreams came true in 2024, as she married her teammate Laura Stacey and saw the long-awaited Professional Women’s Hockey League come into being.

His Montreal team did not play the inaugural match of the first season of the LPHFthe 1^is last January, but the Beauceville attacker still remembers the meeting as if it were yesterday.

We were in our living room and we watched as if we were little children. To see the beginnings of a league, for me, it’s remarkable she recalls in an interview with host Bruno Savard for the ICI 2024 retrospective.

An unexpected popular success

From this first season with popular success well beyond expectations, Marie-Philip Poulin especially remembers the meetings with the supporters.

Hockey is my life. It’s what I love doing, but I think I’ve realized in the last year how much more it is than that. How much you can connect with little girls and boys […] When a parent comes to see me to thank me for making their child dream, it touches me deeply.

Victoire de Montréal fans are not all long-time hockey or even sports fans, the captain also noted.

This league made people who have never followed sport realize that it is possible for them to connect with sport. And also, off the ice, how they can be themselves.

These new hockey fans and their close connection with the LPHF have also allowed the players on the circuit to approach the second season differently. We can take a breath. We don’t have to tell ourselves that if we play a bad match one evening, the fans risk not coming back.

A leader in the locker room

Long the youngest in the locker room of the Canadian hockey team, Marie-Philip Poulin today finds herself at the other end of the spectrum with the Victory.

I was the baby and now I’m the oldest, but it’s really cool to support my teammates and it also keeps me youngrelates the 33-year-old athlete.

Although she has made no secret of her interest in one day becoming a college coach, the three-time Olympic gold medalist is refusing to talk about retirement for the moment. She has so much fun finally being part of a team where all the players are full-time hockey players.

It’s not difficult for us to promote this league. We are so passionate, pampered, and we love what we do.