There isn’t a whole lot to Mount Herbert, P.E.I., a quiet town barely 10 km east of Charlottetown. Ask the people who grew up there to describe home and they’ll probably laugh.
“Well, it’s not very big,” they’ll likely begin, followed by, “It’s just a road, really.”
You won’t find much in the way of basic amenities — no gas station, no grocery store (those are in the next town over) — and in some cases you couldn’t even find it on a map. But in March 2014, Shannon MacAulay changed that.
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It was the NCAA women’s hockey tournament, and tiny, unknown Clarkson University’s Cinderella run had brought them all the way to the finals against the University of Minnesota. Minnesota had made it to the Frozen Four in 10 of the past 12 years, and were the two-time defending national champions. Clarkson, a small college in New York, had never won a title — in any sport.
So you can imagine the excitement when, with just under five minutes remaining in a 4–4 game, MacAulay, an efficient power forward not necessarily relied upon for her scoring, corralled a loose puck and took off on a breakaway, finding the back of the net and sealing the game for her team. The goal made it to ESPN’s “Top 10 Plays of the Week.”
A standout in the local hockey program, MacAulay left home at 14 to attend high school in Warner, Alta., which has a population of just 350, but provided an opportunity to play at a higher level of hockey and a better chance to be noticed by scouts.
By Grade 11, MacAulay had received interest from some of the bigger NCAA hockey programs, but the notion of spending the next chapter of her life at Clarkson in little Potsdam, N.Y., just felt right.
“I always seem to gravitate to small towns,” said MacAulay, 20, prior to suiting up for Canada’s U-22 women’s development team for an exhibition game versus the U.S. in Calgary. “There’s a sense of comfort that you can’t find in bigger cities. You always have great support, and it’s an attitude you find across P.E.I.”
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And if MacAulay didn’t know this before her big moment in the spotlight, all it took was a trip back home afterwards for affirmation. “Whether I was in the grocery store or wherever, I had tons of people come up and congratulate me,” she says. “And they always brought up my goal, telling me, ‘I was watching live!’”
MacAulay played one more year for Clarkson, and most recently played professionally for the NWHL’s Brampton Thunder. This summer she also participated in RBC Training Ground events in Charlottetown and Halifax. There, she drew the eyes of representatives from Rowing Canada, possibly creating another high-profile showcase for the stamina and power honed in years on the ice.
After her championship-winning goal MacAulay also had the chance to speak to a P.E.I. team getting set for the 2015 Canada Games, hoping her success could help pave the way for others.
“It was really cool, because those girls seemed happy to see me and that I had become an NCAA champion. I always looked up to girls from P.E.I. who had success in hockey, and, for sure, I think there’ll be younger girls on the Island… wanting to follow my path.”
A modified version of this article originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.