TORONTO — Laura Stacey had just scored the Clarkson Cup winner—in overtime and from her knees, no less—and she was still dressed in her Markham Thunder jersey with a black champions ball cap on her head when she was asked about her captain, Jocelyne Larocque.
Stacey, who spent a year alongside Larocque while centralized with Team Canada in the lead-up to last month’s Olympics, didn’t even wait for the end of the question.
“She’s somebody I would follow anywhere—even off a cliff,” the 23-year-old said. “I trust that she’s got a safe landing for us.”
On Sunday at Ricoh Coliseum, when the Thunder won the CWHL championship in overtime with a 2-1 victory over Kunlun Red Star, Larocque was the first to hoist the Clarkson Cup in the air, all smiles as she threw that trophy up before handing it off to teammates.
It was poetic, really, that the player who set off a firestorm of opinions a month ago after immediately removing the Olympic silver medal from around her neck following a heartbreaking shootout loss to the Americans, led her CWHL team to the biggest trophy in women’s hockey — some hardware she did want.
And if you called Larocque’s leadership into question after you watched her remove that Olympic silver medal in Pyeongchang less than a second after she got it, you can park it already.
Though Larocque wasn’t made available to print media for interviews following the win (a curious decision on the part of the CWHL), her teammates were more than happy to talk about their captain.
The veteran defenceman wasn’t with this Markham team for most of the season because of her commitments with Team Canada. But Thunder goalie Erica Howe said when Larocque returned a couple weeks ago, she stepped right back into her leadership role.
“She’s the kind of person that you want to be around, that you respect, that you want to be like,” Howe said. “If Joc told me to do something, it’s like, ‘You know what? That’s coming from Joc; I respect her. I’ll do it.’”
This is the same player that some people (the most misguided of all, really) said didn’t even deserve to wear a Team Canada jersey after her actions following that Olympic shootout loss to the rival Americans.
The 29-year-old from Manitoba, who later apologized in a statement through Hockey Canada, meant no disrespect. Larocque had stood there with that silver medal in her hand as she watched the American flag raise to the highest level in the rafters, as she heard her rivals belt out their anthem.
She was straight-faced back in Pyeongchang when she explained why she didn’t want to wear that silver medal, not even for a second.
“I mean, we were going for gold,” Larocque said, then. “And I’m proud of this whole team, but we were chasing that gold medal.” Silver might seem like an accomplishment later on, she added, “but not at the moment.”
Only 31 days had passed since that loss, but this CWHL championship has to be especially sweet for a woman who became one of her team’s biggest stories after the biggest loss of her career.
You can count Stacey among those surprised that her teammate was so harshly criticized.
“Obviously in the heat of the moment, things happen,” Stacey said. “We were all really disappointed and upset at the outcome of that final game. It’s unfortunate [that she was criticized], because she really is such an amazing person. By no means did she mean any harm.”
Stacey, who made her Olympic debut in February, says she has long looked up to Larocque. During the team’s centralization in Calgary in the lead-up to the Games, she said Larocque, who won her first world championship medal for Canada back in 2011 (a silver), was instrumental in helping her along.
“She’s impressed me. Throughout centralization she pushed me and showed me the way,” Stacey said. “I owe a lot of this to her, my whole experience at the Olympics. I wouldn’t want to be part of a team without her.”
No, the win on Sunday doesn’t take away the sting of that Olympic loss, but it feels awfully good, Stacey says. And especially since she earned this championship with the teammate she swears she’d follow off a cliff.
“I’m just so glad we were able to turn this around, and that Joc is able to win a Clarkson Cup for the team that she leads,” Stacey said. “It makes it that much sweeter.”
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