Olympian Jocelyne Larocque recognized again

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This article was published 29/01/2021 (1547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ste. Anne native Jocelyne Larocque, already a decorated international hockey player with Team Canada, can now make one more significant addition to her already burgeoning trophy case.

While in Calgary late last week, where she is attending the Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team tryout and training camp, preparing for the upcoming world championships in Halifax, she received word that she was named the Manitoba Indigenous Female Athlete of the Decade.

Larocque, who is of part Metis descent, was the recipient of the award given to her by the Manitoba Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Council (MASRC).

This latest award comes on the heels of her recently being named to TSN’s All-Time Women’s Team Canada roster.

A member of Canada’s National Women’s Hockey team for more than a decade, Larocque, now 32, is also a two-time Olympian, winning gold at the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi, Russia, and silver at the 2018 Winter Olympics at South Korea, a team that also included her longtime friend Bailey Bram, who has now retired from the program.

Each year the MASRC honours athletes, coaches and volunteers, however this year they are marking a decade of excellence to recipients.

Among the other all-decade winners was another hockey player Zach Whitecloud, currently a defenceman with the Vegas Golden Knights, as he was named the top male athlete of the decade.

Along with the two Olympic medals, Larocque has also won medals at all seven World Women’s Hockey Championships she has competed in, including a gold, five silver and a bronze. “It is quite an honour to receive this award,” Larocque told The Carillon this week from Calgary, “I was speechless when I got the phone call.”

She is expected to again be a mainstay on defence for Team Canada this year as they prepare for the World Women’s Hockey Championships, still slated to be held April 7-17 in Halifax. Despite her being one of Team Canada’s top defencemen, she says, “Although I like where I’m at, I’m not taking anything for granted.”

“The camp has been challenging because of the restrictions due to COVID, but we are still fortunate we are able to be here for the camp. I feel great, my body is holding up very well, I feel 25. There are always great, young players coming up, the talent is always improving.”

The decade of 2010 to 2020 was a decade of incredible success and accomplishment for Larocque, a decade which was marked with several significant awards, including being named the 2014 Manitoba Female Athlete of the Year by the Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.

She was one of the greatest players in the history of the University of Minnesota-Duluth women’s hockey program, leading the team to two national championships.

In her final year at Duluth in 2010-11, she was selected a First Team All-American and was one of finalists for the 2011 Patty Kazmaier Award, given to the top college player in the country.

Larocque finished her four-year career at Minnesota-Duluth as the highest scoring defenceman in school history, garnering 105 points in 127 games.

There is another interesting tidbit about Minnesota-Duluth, and its strong connection to Ste Anne, which comes from Melanie Gagnon, a cousin of Jocelyne Larocque, who finished her four-year career in 2008-09 as a defenceman at Duluth, was captain in her final year and a teammate of Larocque’s for two seasons.

In addition to Larocque’s commitments with the national team after her graduation from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, she played semi-professionally for several seasons in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League in both Calgary and Brampton.

In 2018, Larocque was also a winner of the prestigious Tom Longboat Award. The Tom Longboat Awards were established in 1951 to recognize Indigenous athletes for their outstanding contribution to sport in Canada.

Larocque currently lives in Brantford, Ont., where she is a business owner, fitness instructor and hockey program co-ordinator in the area.

But for now she’s back in Calgary with the national team, where they will be wrapping up a tryout and training camp this weekend to select the team for the world championships in Halifax. However, it was not a normal camp as a number of the invited players currently playing college or professionally in the U.S. were not able to attend.

They also had to go through the isolation and restriction protocols before the camp even got underway, albeit in a limited fashion, “we have been doing a lot of Zoom sessions.”

It is expected that Larocque will again be named to Canada’s World Championship Team for the Halifax championships. She is also setting her sights on competing in her third Olympic Games in two years as Beijing will be the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

She says the final selection camp will be held around late March and she has also heard that the World Championships in Halifax may be delayed until May.

As Larocque presses to compete in yet another World Championship and hopefully at least one more Olympic Games, she is doing so without one of her main supports.

Her mother, Nancy Larocque, passed away in May, 2019. “My mother was my biggest supporter, she was there at the Olympics, and every step of the way before that.”

Larocque recalls watching the 1998 Olympics on TV and she decided that is where she wanted to play one day, “my mother made me believe in myself to make it happen.”

“She is with me every day, she has been my inspiration, and I use her as an inspiration every day.”