Marie-Philip Poulin looks to lead Team Canada to hockey gold with her wife, Laura Stacey, as a teammate
"Captain Clutch" is seen as the world best player, and wants to prove Canada is still the world's best team. The post Marie-Philip Poulin looks to lead Team Canada to hockey gold with her wife, Laura Stacey, as a teammate appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
Name: Marie-Philip Poulin
Country: Canada
Sport: Hockey
Previous Olympic experience: Vancouver 2010; Sochi 2014; PyeongChang 2018; Beijing 2022
Social Media: Instagram
Marie-Philip Poulin has been a star at every level she’s played.
She was a budding pro prospect as a teen and a standout at Boston University. What followed were three Olympic gold medals with Team Canada and being captain of the national team since 2015.
But the player nicknamed “Captain Clutch” had a championship moment off the ice in 2024.
A friendship that bloomed with Laura Stacey, her longtime teammate and current linemate with the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire, ended with a beautiful wedding in September 2024.
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The nuptials opened a window into the person as well as the player who had placed herself high in the lore of a game Canadians claim as a birthright.
“She puts up that front of, ‘I’m the hockey player.’ That’s all people see and have seen of her,” Stacey told the CBC. “The world knows her as the best hockey player in the world, but they don’t know her as the best person in the world as well.”
Who is Marie-Philip Poulin?
Poulin has one goal in Milan: Get Team Canada to the top of the podium again (Canada has won five of the seven women’s Olympic hockey golds). It’s the spark that has driven her since she first picked up a stick and skates as a young girl in Quebec.
The 34-year-old superstar center and team captain is in her fifth Olympics aiming for a fourth gold medal while leading a team that is a mix of experience and youth but one that has lost seven of its last eight games to a certain team south of the border.
“There’s always pressure every time you wear that jersey,” Poulin said an interview with TSN when the final roster was announced. “We want to bring back that gold. That’s our mission Whoever’s in that dressing room, they believes that we will go and get the work done.”
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She got her “Captain Clutch” nickname because she delivered when the stakes were high in the Olympics and world championships. Four of her most special deliveries were at the expense of Team USA.
In the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, she scored both of Canada’s goals a 2-0 gold medal victory over the USA. In 2014, Poulin scored the tying goal in final minute of regulation and then the goal to win it against the Americans. Add in another overtime goal at the 2021 worlds and scoring two goals at the Beijing Olympics and you have Team USA’s worst nightmare.
A win that came from a loss
In between those clutch performances came Stacey.
The teammates were “kinda-sorta-maybe-not” as a couple as Olympic teammates in 2018. Poulin by then was an established star. Stacey was a grinder who finally earned her chance to represent her country.
That Olympic tournament in Pyeongchang, South Korea, ended with Team USA grabbing the gold, and one of the misses in the overtime shootout for Canada was off the stick of Captain Clutch.
“I felt like I let the entire country down,” Poulin said in an interview with CBC in 2024. “I was one of the leaders. You take everything on your shoulders. I didn’t want to see anybody and I was just really on my own.”
The following Canadian Women’s Hockey League season saw Poulin and Stacey on different teams. After an early-season game between their clubs, Poulin decided to stop skating away from what could be and start leaning into it.
By 2023, the pair had gone from “maybe” to “You•Me•Oui•Forever.”
Marie-Philip Poulin at the Milan Winter Olympics
Poulin heads into the Olympic tournament with a lot of momentum as the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s Player of the Year. She also earned PWHL MVP honors and led the league in scoring last season and is off to strong start this season as the pro league heads to the Olympic break.
Canadians expect gold on the ice, and Poulin sees the chance to inspire young hockey players the way past teams inspired her.
“I was pretty lucky when I was a kid to watch the Olympics and getting inspired by the national team and seeing them winning gold,” Poulin told CBS Sports last week. “That’s really what sparked my dream. I think for for all of us we want to inspire the next generation.”
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The post Marie-Philip Poulin looks to lead Team Canada to hockey gold with her wife, Laura Stacey, as a teammate appeared first on Outsports.
