Why Victoire’s Poulin and Stacey are grateful for the end of the off-season

The off-season was longer than Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey would’ve liked, but it’s finally just about over. 

On Sunday afternoon, their Montreal Victoire — last year’s regular-season champions, who were upset in Round 1 of the playoffs, kick-starting that lengthy off-season — open Year 3 of the PWHL on the road against Boston (1 p.m. ET puck drop, on Sportsnet). 

The recently married pair caught up with Sportsnet while driving home from a pre-season practice — Poulin behind the wheel; Stacey riding shotgun. The Victoire’s top two leading point-getters last season covered everything from how long they felt the sting of last season’s disappointment and how their team looks after the PWHL’s expansion, to providing scouting reports on a few teammates and clearing up whether they like being called a “hockey power couple.” 

This interview — the first in a regular series on Sportsnet featuring PWHL players and management — has been edited for length and clarity. 

SPORTSNET: Thanks for kicking off our interview series this season. It’s an honour, right?

POULIN: [Both laugh.] For sure.

How much are you looking forward to Game 1 in Boston? 

POULIN: Very excited, honestly. It’s been a long off-season. It’s always fun to start the season and to wear that Victoire jersey. New group, new season — pretty fired up about it.

Will it be weird that Hilary Knight is no longer playing for the Fleet? [Boston’s former captain now wears the ‘C’ for the expansion Seattle Torrent.]

STACEY: Definitely. I think looking at Boston and not seeing Hilary there is a little bit of a shock to all of us, but obviously they have some great players and they always give us a hard game. 

We’ve had some tough moments, especially the first season against Boston [the Fleet swept Montreal in Round 1 of the 2024 playoffs] that we’re never really going to forget, so every time we go into that arena it brings back those memories and those feelings. We’re both excited for all the new girls on our team to come in and experience their first-ever PWHL game, if that’s it, or their first PWHL game with the Victoire. It’ll be a fun moment, and I think everybody’s ready to start playing hockey. 

Your GM Danièle Sauvageau was just inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder category. What can you say about how she’s managed to re-build the Victoire after expansion?  

POULIN: Obviously, you don’t want to see players leave, you never want to see teammates and friends go, but it’s part of professional sports. But what Danièle’s done in the summer, being able to bring some key players here in Montreal, it’s been awesome. She has so much on the go — and on a sidenote, pretty awesome to see her inducted in the Hall of Fame. But the hard work she’s done to make sure we’re going to have a competitive team even though we lost quite a few players, it’s been amazing to see the new players that came in and can bring a lot to this group.

Who excites you among the new players you’ve seen at training camp? 

POULIN: Abby Roque is somebody that we’re very excited to have here in Montreal — she’s going to bring a lot. Somebody you hate playing against, but you love to have on your team, and I think she showed it right away in the first couple of practices. [Hayley] Scamurra, Dig [Jessica DiGirolamo] from Boston, [Shiann] Darkangelo from Ottawa — there’s a lot. Those are all key players with experience. 

What will it be like to play against former teammates who now suit up for Vancouver or Seattle?

STACEY: I think it’s a little bit of mixed emotions, playing against some great players that we lost. And it’s going to be difficult in the sense that they have two really good teams out there and the travel is not going to make it any easier. I think we’re all expecting it to be tougher, but at the end of the day when you zoom out a little and you realize the perspective of how amazing it is that we’ve already expanded after two seasons and we’re now on the west coast, it’s pretty cool that the PWHL has grown this much that we get to experience those two new cities so quickly. 

Ready to do some scouting reports on some teammates? 

First up is Abby Roque. What does she bring to your team? 

POULIN: We’ve had the chance to play against her the last two seasons. I think the grit, the passion she brings — she’s a competitor. That’s why she’s a firecracker out there, but it’s more than that. She has such a high hockey IQ, the way she sees the game. A hard shot and she’s really great on faceoffs. So, pretty fired up to see her start the season in Montreal this year.

How about Ann-Renée Desbiens? 

STACEY: I think she’s the best goaltender in the world. She brings a crazy amount of poise and calm to our back end. I think it allows our defencemen and our whole team, to play with a lot more confidence, because we know that if we do make a mistake, she has our back. She’s an incredibly skilled goaltender, but I think she also brings a lot to our team in terms of leadership and determination, and battling back from a couple little tweaks and injuries last year. Just the way she wants it, the way that she wants it for this city and our team is pretty special to see. 

How about defender Nicole Gosling, your first-round pick in the draft. How quickly do you see her adapting to the league? 

POULIN: Right away she’s going to have a great impact on her group. She’s young and she’s so eager to learn and make a difference and that’s something that we love to see. We know her from the national team. She brings so much poise, she has a hard shot, she’s great defensively and she has a great stick. 

Is there a teammate who’s maybe underrated and deserves some attention that you want to point out? 

STACEY: I’m really excited and looking forward to having Shiann Darkangelo on our team. I think she’s super underrated, maybe a little less underrated after her shutting us down in the playoffs [while playing for Ottawa] last year. But the way she handles herself, the way she shows up to the rink, the pro that’s in her — you can already see it. I think she’s going to bring so much more to our team than we ever realized, and I’m excited to see that. 

Do you want to do scouting reports on each other? 

POULIN: [Both laugh.] Uuuh….

STACEY: Probably not… 

That’s fair. I figured you’d say no, but I wanted to ask just in case. 

POULIN: I love that you know and you still do it! 

Of course. What are you looking forward to most about your home opener? [Nov. 25 vs. New York] 

POULIN: Just getting back in that building. It’s a no-brainer that every time we have the chance to play in Place Bell, having our fans there behind us, the excitement, how loud it is — it’s very special. You go through a summer where you train and you’re excited to get back, but you do forget a little bit that feeling of how loud it is. It brings you right back to when you started playing hockey as a kid and that excitement and that bubbliness, that giggly-ness that you get at the rink before is something that never gets old.

What’s the biggest storyline heading into Year 3 for your team?

STACEY: The most important thing for our team is bringing home a Walter Cup. We’ve had some great seasons, we’ve ended the regular season in first place last year, second the year before, we got our first playoff win last year. But that’s just not good enough and we know that, our whole organization knows that, and I think everybody coming in knows that we want more and we expect more of ourselves. 

For us, the motto or what we’re trying to do is grow from last year. We had an amazing season, amazing team. I think it’s really important to look at those playoff losses, look at those series as learning moments. It’s not easy to win a championship in one year, or even two. So, the fact that we’re getting closer and closer and we’re taking steps is huge. And I think this year it’s important to take another big step.

How long did you wear the disappointment of last season, and the playoffs ending like they did? 

STACEY: We wore this one a lot. It was a tougher off-season, especially because it felt like it was two years in a row with a similar story and a similar outcome. So, I think this summer it was a tough one to take. It was like, ‘What’s the difference? How are we getting better?’ A lot of questions of ourselves, like ‘Why weren’t we good enough? Why couldn’t we do more?’ All those questions were in our heads for a while. And I think with the longer-seeming off-season I think that that added to it even more. 

But I think when we looked back at the season and realized how much growth we actually did experience and how much our team improved and got better, and ourselves as individuals, too. I think for us it’s like okay, I don’t know, Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Michael Jordan, they talk about how their failures were the reason they succeeded and their failures were the reason that they found a way to win. I think the two of us both sat back and tried to feel that, ‘Okay yes, we failed, but we’ve also learned so much through those failures, through those moments of triple overtime, and that whole experience — there was so much gained as well.’ So for us, it’s how do we use that knowledge, that information, that pressure, those feelings, and use it to our advantage to turn this into a championship-winning team.

POULIN: Well, she kind of said it all, didn’t she? [Both laugh.]

She did. What’s the best part about playing in this league? 

POULIN: The competitiveness; playing best-on-best, day in and day out. That’s what you want. That’s why you put in those extra hours, those days of workouts during the summer on and off the ice. And you want to be part of that professional league where you play best-on-best, which excites me the most. You have to be ready every day. That’s our work now. That’s the best part about it. We get to wake up to go to the rink, to train, to make sure you’re ready to go for our season — something that makes me feel very privileged and honoured to be part of this. And we’ve just got to keep going and keep growing the game. 

Has anything about the PWHL surprised you so far? 

STACEY: I think it’s been extremely surprising with how much it’s blown up, how many fans we’re getting in all the different cities. I think in Montreal alone, it’s been extremely eye-opening of how many people love the Victoire, how many people want to come out and watch and be a part of it. 

We knew and we hoped that people wanted women’s hockey, but I think it’s far surpassed any of our expectations of how much this league was truly important and inspiring so many people. As an outsider coming to Montreal, I think I’ve been extremely shocked and blown away just with the passion that these fans already have only two years in for our team and for us as players.

Ok, last question. Do you like being called a “hockey power couple?” Because I’ve read that in more than a few articles. 

POULIN and STACEY: No! [Both laugh.]