PROFILE -- Kim St. Pierre: A career of firsts for Canada's top female goalie
 St. Pierre still dusts off her old Martlets practice jersey for ice time with Team Canada and the CWHL's Montreal Stars. [Click to enlarge]
|
|
Few athletes can claim to be the world's top player at their position. But while Kim St. Pierre is modest about her accomplishments, the 2004 McGill kinesiology grad is considered to the best female goalie of the past decade, with two Olympic gold medals and countless top awards under her belt. However, hockey wasn't always St. Pierre's sport of choice.
Just one of the boys
Every winter, former CHL player Andre St. Pierre built an ice rink behind his Châteauguay home, where his five-year-old daughter Kim would practice her figure skating routines. But when neighbourhood boys crowded the rink to play hockey after school, Kim was intrigued.
"I had my figure skates on and I just took a hockey stick," she said. "I fell in love with the sport."
From then on, "everything was about sports." St. Pierre spent her childhood shuffling from practice to practice: she swam and played tennis, softball, and soccer. But her first love was always her dearest.
By the time she was 11, St. Pierre turned her focus solely on hockey-especially goaltending.
"The [Canadiens] were my favourite team when I was younger, and when I first started watching them, Patrick Roy was the goalie," St. Pierre said. "So I wanted to be like him someday."
But her passion was an unconventional one in Châteauguay, where girls simply didn't play hockey. As a result, St. Pierre played in boys' leagues through CEGEP, and was therefore more accustomed to the speed and power of men's hockey, as opposed to the finesse of the women's game.
"Because I was unused to playing women's hockey, I got cut five years in a row trying out for the national women's team," St. Pierre recalled. "But it didn't matter. I always believed that one day hockey would work out for me. So many kids, when they get cut once, they want to go home and quit everything. But it's all about believing in yourself and your dreams, and not being afraid of being different. For me, being the only girl playing hockey didn't matter because that's what I really wanted to do."
This perseverance paid off in one whirlwind year. By 1998-her last year of CEGEP-St. Pierre had resigned herself to a future playing hockey as a hobby. But she got lucky: one Sunday night right before graduation, then-Martlets coach Dan Madden happened to watch her play in her hometown. Excited by her goaltending skills, Madden approached her afterwards and invited her to go on a tour of the McGill campus and consider applying.
"I was so surprised to see them in their big red McGill jackets after one of my games," St. Pierre said. "I don't think I could even speak English with them. When they asked me to apply to McGill, I was thinking no, women's hockey isn't for me. … I didn't speak English, I didn't have any friends going there."
McGill did, however, offer the chance to continue playing hockey.
"That was the one university that could allow me to combine [academics] with hockey, so I knew that was the one," she said. "McGill came into the picture and they gave me a chance to pursue my hockey career.
So maybe it wasn't with the guys, but still-it was hockey. Now I'm glad I made that decision."
A spot on the Martlets roster gave St. Pierre a chance to transfer the skills she'd learned playing men's hockey to the women's game. A few weeks after school started, she got a phone call from the national women's team inviting her to her first training camp. And by the 2001 World Championships, she was turning aside five shots in 10 seconds during a power-play against Team USA as Team Canada's starting netminder.
For the record books
St. Pierre broke 60 McGill women's goaltending records in four years as a Martlet. She ranks first all-time with the National Women's Team in games started, wins, and shutouts. And she's had plenty of firsts: she was the first woman to be credited with a win in a men's CIS game when the Redmen beat Ryerson 5-2 in November 2003. Her jersey, official scoresheet, puck, and hockey stick from that game are on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
"I'm proud of everything," said St. Pierre. "When I started playing hockey with the boys in Châteauguay, it was only locally. So playing with the Martlets, the first time I was playing women's hockey, was something very special for me. … Then I got to go to a few national championships and two Olympic games. But nothing can beat the Olympic games. That's the biggest competition there is on earth, and you play with the best athletes in your sport in the world. … So my first Olympics in 2002 were-as it is right now-my favourite moment."
The 2002 Salt Lake City games weren't only special for St. Pierre. Hockey, already Canada's national winter sport, experienced an extra patriotic push that year as the entire nation was caught up in the now-famous women's and men's hockey double gold wins over the "lucky loonie" planted at centre ice. At those Olympics, St. Pierre started four of five games, saving 73 of the 78 shots she faced en route to her first Olympic gold medal.
"[At first,] it's just another hockey game," St. Pierre said of the gold medal game. "Then you feel like you're on a cloud. The very next day is when it really hit me, when you get up in the morning and you have no more training and your gold medal right there at your bedside. … I thought about it not being only one hockey game, but the result of all the years in sports: the training, determination, and especially perseverance it took to make it to the Olympics. I know not a lot of athletes are able to make it, and I was fortunate enough."
After returning triumphantly from the States, a hometown welcome party attracted 5,000 well-wishers, and McGill honoured St. Pierre prior to a Martlets game as the first McGill student to win an Olympic gold medal since George Hodgson won gold as a swimmer in 1912 in Stockholm.
She went on to win another gold medal in the 2006 Olympics, and recently made headlines as the second woman to ever skate alongside NHL players. When current Canadiens goaltender Carey Price came down with the flu, St. Pierre was called in for a practice session. After having dreamed of tending goal for the Habs as a child, her dream had almost come true.
"When I woke up that morning, I was getting ready to go train as [usual]," said St. Pierre. "Then I got the phone call, so instead of going to my rink I went to the Canadiens rink. Everything happened so fast. … It was a special moment. In my mind it had just been a practice but then I realized it was a big deal."
Moving on
St. Pierre is currently gearing up for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, on the ice for four practices and two games a week, on top of daily weight and cardio training.
"It's going to be a big deal," she said. "Having a chance to compete at the Olympic games in my own country-it's enough to motivate me everyday to wake up and practice."
The 2010 Olympics are all the more special for St. Pierre as they may be her last.
"When I get back from the Olympics, I'll start thinking about, 'Do I want to keep doing this, or do I want a career?'" she said. "I'm 30 years old now. You don't make enough money playing hockey."
St. Pierre currently coaches and teaches at training schools in her spare time, and thinks teaching physical education, sports journalism, or becoming a sports agent could be in the cards. For now, however, she's happy to keep playing for the Montreal Stars of the Canadian Women's Hockey League-a not-for-profit organization that depends on private donations and corporate sponsors.
"At some point, I really hope that [the CWHL] is going to be a professional league so that little girls can hope," St. Pierre said. "When I first started [playing], women's hockey wasn't very popular and nobody really knew about it. All the kids were dreaming of the NHL. But now they can see that they can be on the national team, go to the Olympics, or make it to the CWHL. We're setting up a plan right now to make it happen right after the Olympics. It will be a professional league where maybe some of the US players or European players could come and play. It would be like the NHL for women."
If the CWHL turns into the women's NHL, as opposed to a not-for-profit organization, the next generation of female hockey players won't have to give up playing for financial reasons like St. Pierre might soon have to.
Though she never did make the NHL, St. Pierre can rest assured that her career is not second-rate. After all, how many athletes have two Olympic golds and stand at the top of their league? And as for playing with the Canadiens-been there, done that.
Be the first to comment on this story