Although the Tribune awarded Charline Labonté this honour after her stellar freshman season at McGill, and we would love to recognize one of the many other great female athletes on campus, the hockey Martlets All-World goaltender made it impossible to ignore her this season. Labonté successfully backstopped the Red 'n' White to the first CIS championship in any McGill female varsity program and successfully defended her Athlete of the Year crown with a dominant 2007-08 season. The Canadian Olympic gold medal-winning keeper from Torino in 2006 posted outrageous numbers in her second year at the helm of the Martlets, leading a historic campaign for the still-nascent program. Labonté garnered a 37-4-0 record, including going undefeated against CIS opponents in regular season play, and only allowed 33 pucks past her all year. Over the course of her 37 victories, the Martlets goalie also posted 26 shutouts-11 of which were in CIS play-a miniscule 0.47 goals against average and an equally impressive 0.971 save percentage backstopping McGill to nationals where Labonté was not scored upon in the three game tournament against, supposedly, Canada's top university sides.
After her championship season, in which she accumulated an incredible shutout streak that lasted 363 minutes and nine seconds, and certainly not injured by the fact that her head coach, Peter Smith, also manages the Canadian national women's team, Labonté was selected to Team Canada's roster for the IIHF Women's World Championship in China. If Labonté can win the starting job at the currently ongoing tournament and guide the national squad to another gold medal, it will only further enhance her status as McGill's top female competitor. The number-one goaltender position is notably contested by a fellow Martlets alumna, Kim St. Pierre, and whomever emerges as the number one netminder will likely have the inside track for the 2010
Olympic Games.
Granted, Charline Labonté played on the nation's top team against clearly inferior competition, especially in the abysmally easy Quebec conference; however, such statistics are unprecedented at McGill-well, except for the keeper's 2006 season-which makes her a worthy two-time McGill Tribune Female Athlete of the Year.
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