Caroline Ouellette had just scored the record-tying 130th goal of her pro hockey career.
Minutes later, Marie-Philip Poulin—author of Canada’s game-winners at the last two Olympics—took off down the hall, her skates still on.
“Pou!” Ouellette called after her. “I’m not there yet!”
Not quite, but she’s awfully close. Last weekend, Ouellette, 37, scored an empty-netter that tied Jayna Hefford’s record for the most goals in Canadian Women’s Hockey League history. You can’t blame Poulin for going after the puck that ties that milestone. She did get her hands on it, too.
Ouellette, a four-time Olympic gold medallist, is already the CWHL’s all-time leader in assists and points. She’s the first player in league history to reach 300 points, a mark she hit in December.
One more goal—four regular season games remain for her Canadiennes de Montreal, including a two-game set at home against Toronto this weekend—and she holds every major offensive record in the CWHL.
“It means that I’ve been playing for a long time,” the 37-year-old from Montreal says, with a laugh.
That’s part of it, of course. But Ouellette, who joined the CWHL as a rookie in 2008-09, remains one of the best players in the world, and she’ll take part in the CWHL All-Star Game later this month.
She last played for Canada at the 2015 World Championship, and ranks third all-time in points for the national team, behind only the recently-retired Hayley Wickenheiser, and Hefford.
Poulin, who’s 12 years younger than Ouellette, grew up looking up to the player she now calls a teammate.
“Seeing her at the [2002] Olympics when I was a kid, it was amazing,” Poulin says. “The chance to play with her, train with her, live with her, it’s really helped me in my career.
“She never takes anything for granted. She has four Olympic gold medals, but she’s still the first one on the ice, pushing us to be better.”
Not bad for a woman who almost didn’t get a chance to play the game. Ouellette’s father, Andre, wasn’t in favour of it, initially.
“He was afraid—he had never seen a girl play hockey,” says Ouellette. “He got me to watch a game of ringette, and I did not like it because I wanted to play for the Montreal Canadiens.
“After many requests and perseverance—and my mom helped a lot, she got me my first pair of hockey skates—my dad slowly gave in.”
He also became her first coach. Ouellette, who was a big fan of Mats Naslund as a kid, started playing at age nine.
By the time she was a teenager, she was on the radar of Canada’s national team, a player with both skill and size. (She’s now five-foot-11 and 172 pounds.)
Ouellette first played for Daniele Savageau with Team Quebec at age 16 or 17. “She was tall, very shy, not talkative, but with a great sense of leadership, if you define leadership by having an athlete that every time she steps on the ice is there to perform and listen, and is eager to learn,” Sauvageau says.
Ouellette cracked the national team for the first time in 1999, the year after women’s hockey made its debut at the Olympics. She’s been a part of every Olympic team since.
She doesn’t remember much about her Winter Games debut, at age 21, in Salt Lake City. Sauvageau, the head coach of that gold medal-winning squad, says Ouellette scored the first goal of the tournament for Canada.
“I don’t remember that,” Ouellette says. “I just remember I was so nervous. I think I was shaking.”
While she didn’t get a lot of ice time at her first Olympics, Ouellette became one of the most trusted and dependable and successful players for Canada in the years that followed. “It took me a few years to realize I belonged with the best, and I could become a national team player and do it for a while,” she says.
She had the fourth-most points for Canada at the 2006 Olympics, and 11 points in five games four years later in Vancouver. In Sochi, she wore the C for Canada. [sidebar]
“She’s the best captain I’ve ever had,” says Poulin, who now dons the C for Les Canadiennes, while Ouellette is an alternate. “I’m so lucky to have her in my life.”
While Ouellette will tell you she doesn’t feel as fast as she did years ago, like in 2011 when she was named league MVP and won the scoring title, she remains one of the highest-scoring players in the CWHL.
Her 31 points (15 goals, 16 assists) in 20 games this season are second only to Poulin and Brampton’s Jess Jones, who are tied for the league lead with 32 points apiece.
On Saturday, Ouellette will have a chance to score No. 17 on the season, No. 131 overall, and break that goal-scoring record. The 3:30 pm ET game will be broadcast on Sportsnet.
You can bet Poulin will be looking to set up her teammate for that big goal.
“That would be quite fun,” says Poulin. “It would be a pleasure for me to do that.”
Says Ouellette, with a laugh: “She always tries, but I need to finish more often.”
Well, should Ouellette put one in on Saturday, know that Poulin will be on that puck like a hound dog.
“I have the best player in the world on the mission of finding that puck,” Ouellette says. “I think we definitely have it covered.”
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