Game On Magazine 2017 Game On Magazine - Regular Season Edition | Page 104

Trio Headed
to the Olympics
B Y S C O T T TAY L O R
with notes from Fiona Rettie, CCSM
Photos by Rusty Barton
CALGARY – Jocelyne Larocque
from Ste. Anne, Man.,
became the first Metis
player to represent Canada
in women’s hockey at the
Olympic Games when she
made Team Canada in 2014.
This year, Brigette Lacquette
from Mallard, Man., will
become the initial First Nations
player to make the Olympic
women’s hockey team.
One thing about Manitoba
hockey players: They
tend to make history.
Lacquette, 25, is from the
small Metis community of
Mallard (her dad, Terrance is
Metis), but she and her mother,
Anita, are treatied members
of Saskatchewan’s Cote First
Nation and, thus, Brigette is the
very first First Nations woman
to play for Canada’s Olympic
women’s national hockey team.
“It’s pretty special,” said
Lacquette, who grew up in a
small Manitoba community with
parents who devoted all their
time to the sporting ventures
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of their three children. “As you
know, when I was growing up,
I didn’t really have a female
role model to look up to. It’s
just pretty special for me to
be in a position that I’m now
the role model for young First
Nations kids across Canada.”
Another player who is
completely dedicated to the
game, she comes from a hockey
family. Her younger brother
Taran was an outstanding
defenseman with the OCN
Blizzard of the Manitoba
Junior Hockey League while
her older sister Tara was a
goaltender at the University of
Manitoba and the University
of Calgary and was also part
of Canada’s national team
program when she was younger.
Larocque and Lacquette
along with long-time Canadian
star forward Bailey Bram of
Ste. Anne, Man., have all been
named to Canada’s Olympic
women’s hockey team and will be
on the ice when Canada opens
the round-robin portion of the
BAILEY BRAM NO.17
JOCELYNE LAROCQUE NO.3
BRIGETTE LACQUETTE NO.4