Sunday, September 26, 2010

Hockey East Preseason Feature: Marie-Philip Poulin

The Stamp of Success
Poulin’s arrival a testament to Terriers’ rise

By Al Daniel

Brian Durocher sees no sense in dispensing with the lofty labels his prized recruit, Marie-Philip Poulin, has garnered in her young career along with her various trophies, medals, and personal accolades.

Having witnessed her work at various youth engagements between Canadian and American talent, and his pupils having scrimmaged against her when she was with Dawson College in her native Quebec in 2008, he was apt to crave Poulin’s services as much as any college coach.

“She was clearly somebody who was a talented kid, had real strength and power on her skates,” he said. “There’s no question that she was a force despite playing against kids who were three or four years older than her.”

A force despite playing against kids who were three or four years older than her. Such word choice is always applied delicately and sparingly when assessing an aspirant of any interest.

Accordingly, Durocher embraces the prospect of Poulin verifying, and potentially accelerating, the claims that she is the Sidney Crosby of women’s hockey. After all, that would only help Boston University’s cause on the stats sheet and in the PR arena.

But, his acknowledged excitement notwithstanding, the Terriers’ coach still managed to assume the prudent, soft-driven path of hockey humility.

“That’s a pretty unique comparison, a pretty lofty comparison,” he said of the Crosby contentions. “I’m sure that most people like to fly under the radar a little bit, and Marie-Philip is probably one of those people. You speak with your results. You speak with how you play.

“Making comparisons to a phenom: that’s a great compliment and very exciting for her. But up here she looks at the next game or the next season, continuing to get better, continuing to grow. And that’s what we’re here for, is to help her progress. Like most of the best players she wants to reach even higher and do better.”

Similar words can be said of Durocher and his program –and they often are said by the Terriers’ patriarch himself. After winning their first conference championship in their fifth year of existence last March, the BU women now have a more tangible foundation in their effort to match the perennial prestige of the neighboring men’s program.

And with that aspect in mind, Durocher offered one enlightening distinction between the young lady who scored her sport’s gold-clinching goal in Vancouver last February and the young man who did likewise for his side of the game.

Crosby was sought, and inevitably drafted, for the purpose of replenishing a downtrodden NHL franchise in Pittsburgh. Conversely, the Terriers had to steadily scrap for their own credibility before they could attract the stars.

“I think clearly, three years ago she would have caught everybody’s attention as a recruit,” said Durocher of Poulin.

“The biggest thing was going to be us being ready for her. We had a fantastic school here and a great city to go to school and we knew we had all of the support. But back in the beginning there were players who were top college prospects who I went to talk to and we didn’t quite have the depth or the volume of good players to play against. And I think Hockey East was way behind where they are now.

“Over the past year and a half I think there was a time when we were on the outside looking in. And then, with our success this year winning Hockey East, making it to the national tournament, things started to fall in place for us and when she came down here, I think she had a chance to see this was an exciting place.”

The Poulin Pool, as it were, made for an expectably intense derby among NCAA programs. She reportedly looked into the likes of western hegemonies Wisconsin and Minnesota-Duluth as well as North Dakota and St. Lawrence. Ultimately, her heart chose the Hub in May, three months after she drew a whole continent’s attention for one night and two months after the Terriers claimed their icebreaking Hockey East playoff crown and played in their first NCAA tournament game.

Nothing was formally confirmed until an August 5 press release, but the virtual certainty of Poulin’s arrival kept up quite a crescendo in talks of a Terrier uprising. After all, as early as January, BU buffs were fueling their fantasies about ex-New Hampshire puckslinger Jenn Wakefield’s impending transfer. After that, seasoned McGill University defender and Poulin’s Olympic teammate Catherine Ward was supposedly coming to study and skate for a graduate year.

Both of those stories proved true. And Durocher, who wanted to make a keen point of mentioning his other freshmen as exciting additives, credited Wakefield and Ward for merely being Poulin’s teammate for the better part of Canada’s Olympic training camp. (Wakefield was eventually cut and spent the rest of 2009-10 at the U22 level.)

The mere fact that Poulin and the like spurned established heavyweights like Wisconsin and Duluth –with their three and four respective national titles- in favor of hardware-barren eastern schools could also presage a long-awaited shift in regional power. If nothing else, one can assume the athletes themselves detect the enticing potential.

“There are more and more top players coming not only here but coming out east as well,” Durocher said. “That was nice for (Poulin) to know.”

And now, he hopes, Poulin will return a favor by extending the recruitment lightning rod to more marquee prospects.

“Anybody who’s had the success that she’s had in her time with Hockey Canada, you know that people are going to be watching here and there’s going to be publicity. And certainly we hope that she rings the bell a little bit louder for Boston University as a recruiting well. Let people know that there are top players here and she’s not alone. (There are also) the (Tara) Watchorns, the (Jenelle) Kohanchuks who are already here and the Wakefields and the Wards who are coming this year.

“Each year we try to ring the bell a little louder. And I think the championship last year, being in the final four of our league three years in a row and getting to the NCAA tournament, all of those things are making us a little more is making us a little bit more prominent in the college hockey world. That was one of our goals that we had when we started and one that we hope to continue to achieve in.”

Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent for Beyond the Dashers

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