Marie-Philip Poulin

Marie-Philip Poulin (born March 28, 1991) is a Canadian professional ice hockey forward for Montreal in the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).

She is also the captain of the Canadian national ice hockey team.

Poulin spent 2007–08 with the Montreal Stars of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL).

She appeared in only 16 games, but led rookies in scoring with 22 goals and 21 assists.

So dominant was she in half a season as a 16-year-old rookie that she finished runner up in the CWHL Most Valuable Player (MVP) vote by club captains.

She was also a recipient of the Montreal Canadiens scholarship program in January 2008.

In 2008–09, she played with her school team (Dawson College), but also played as an associate player with the Stars.

At year's end in March 2009, she helped the Stars win the first Clarkson Cup over the Minnesota Whitecaps in Kingston, Ontario.

In the championship game, she assisted on a goal by Caroline Ouellette.

A three-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Champion with the Canadian national team, Poulin famously scored the game-winning goal in the gold medal games in three out of four of the Olympics in which she competed (2010, 2014 and 2022), for which she was dubbed Captain Clutch by her teammates and the media.

Following another game-winning goal at the 2021 IIHF Women's World Championship, she completed an unprecedented "golden goal hat trick" at major international championships.

Poulin debuted with the Boston University Terriers women's program during the 2010–11 season.

On October 2, 2010, she scored the first goal of her NCAA career in a 5–4 loss at North Dakota.

With her third shorthanded goal of the season on October 15, she tied BU's single-season record for shorthanded tallies in just four games.

She led all NCAA freshmen in goals (9) and points per game (2.00) during October 2010.

In addition, she led all Hockey East freshmen in goals, assists, and points during the month.

In the first seven games of her NCAA career, she had a seven-game point-scoring streak consisting of nine goals and seven assists.

On December 7 and 10, two wins over Northeastern and Harvard, Poulin registered three goals.

In both games, she had a total of 11 shots on goal and a +2 rating.

On December 10, she scored two goals and a game-high eight shots as BU prevailed by a 5–3 mark over Harvard.

The win was the Terriers' 100th win in program history.

Poulin broke BU's single-season points record with her second goal of the game and later tied the single-season goals record with her third marker.

On January 15 and 16, 2011, Poulin recorded five points (2 goals, 3 assists) in BU's two wins over Boston College and Maine.

Against BC, Poulin notched a power-play goal and two assists.

Versus the Maine Black Bears, she registered a goal and an assist.

On January 22, 2011, Poulin recorded a hat trick, including two power-play goals as BU prevailed over Vermont in a 4–0 win.

She became the first Terriers player to be honoured as Hockey East Rookie of the Year in March 2011.

A fracture of the shoulder did not hold her from action for the 2011–12 season.

On May 11, 2012, Terriers head coach Brian Durocher announced that the captains for the 2012–13 campaign would be Poulin and Jill Cardella.

For the 2014–15 season, Poulin was appointed team captain.

As captain, she would lead the team to its fourth consecutive Hockey East championship.

Since 2015 she has served as the captain of Team Canada, leading them to a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics and a gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

After the 2015 Hockey East tournament, she would join Shannon Doyle and fellow Montreal resident Kayla Tutino on the All-Tournament Team.

Poulin returned to the CWHL in the autumn of 2015 when she was selected by the Stars in the 2015 CWHL Draft.

Before the season began, the Stars announced a partnership with the NHL's Montreal Canadiens and re-branded as Les Canadiennes de Montréal.

Professionally, Poulin played for and captained Les Canadiennes de Montreal in the now-defunct Canadian Women's Hockey League, before joining the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), a non-profit dedicated to increasing the professionalization of women's hockey, in 2019.

In 2023, she signed with Montreal in the newly established PWHL.

While playing with Les Canadiennes, she won the Clarkson Cup twice and was named CWHL MVP three times.

She is the first female hockey player to win the Northern Star Award as Canada's top athlete of the year, and the second to receive the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as The Canadian Press' female athlete of the year.

She is widely considered to be the best women's hockey star of all-time.