At just 24 years of age, Marie-Philip Poulin has already lived a career full of hockey moments.
A prodigious hockey talent, the Canadian forward seems to always save her best for her country.
The Beauceville, Que., native scored the game-winning goal in both the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Winter Games and, Olympics aside, her list of accolades still reads like a record book.
Poulin won the Canadian Women’s Hockey League’s Clarkson Cup in her sophomore season. As a rookie in the same league, she notched 43 points, including 22 goals, and finished second in the MVP voting by team captains, despite being only 16 years old and having played just half a season.
She had an exceptional hockey career at Boston University before returning to the CWHL for the 2015-2016 season and winning the Angela James Bowl as the league’s leading scorer with 46 points in 22 games. She added another eight playoff points as her Les Canadiennes de Montréal launched a bid to again hoist the Clarkson Cup in 2016. The Canadiennes would lose the championship to the Calgary Inferno — for whom many of her now Canadian teammates play — but Poulin scored one of Montreal’s three goals in the final.
She was later voted by her peers the winner of the Jayna Hefford Memorial Trophy, awarded to the player who best reflects the principles of the CWHL — skill, competitiveness and leadership — and was named the league’s most valuable player.
Here in Kamloops — as she did last year in Malmö, Sweden — she will captain Canada’s national team.
Poulin is quickly becoming the new face of the ladies’ game north of the border and during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver was drawing comparisons to NHL star Sidney Crosby.
“I’m not too sure about that,” Poulin said with a laugh.
“I think for me, I just play hard. I’m so lucky to be able to play for Canada, to be wearing that jersey. For me, just to work hard every day, to be improving, to make other people around me better, that’s why I go out.
“I don’t think it’s the right comparison, for sure.”
Comparisons notwithstanding, Poulin will be relied on heavily by the Canadians this week in Kamloops. She is expected to be part of the team’s top scoring line with Meghan Agosta and Natalie Spooner and was second to only Spooner in scoring in the 2015 championship.
Poulin said she and her teammates need to focus on the details of the game if they hope to be singing the Canadian national anthem on Monday, returning to the winner’s circle for the first time since the 2012 world championship in Burlington, Vt.
“We know we’ve been losing the last couple world championships and it has been disappointing. For us, it’s a big motivation for us,” she said.
“When you lose the gold medal, I think it’s a disappointment. Especially in Canada, we know we have to win gold and that’s what we want to do.”
Poulin has already amassed a career’s worth of hockey hardware, but she’s hoping to add one more — another world championship gold medal. Right now, her trophy case is a little lopsided with silver.
And what better place to do it than on Canadian soil?
“I think its a privilege to be able to play here, in front of your home crowd, in Canada,” she said.
“To wear that jersey in front of them, I think it’s so exciting.”