Athlete Bios
Hockey
Monique Lamoureux: part of a twin force on U.S. Olympic team
With her twin sister, Joceylne, the American forward is a force on her country's Olympic team
Last Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010 | 2:43 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Monique Lamoureux, left, says her Olympic dreams have always included her sister. (Tom Dahlin /Getty Images)She grew up playing on the frozen river with her twin sister, four brothers and the rest of the neighborhood kids in Grand Forks, N.D., and she would come off the ice and trudge home through the dark, skates slung over her shoulder, only after her mother blew a whistle from their house. In the summer she and her sister played street hockey in the driveway, covering her garage door with so many tennis ball marks they had to repaint it.
These sound like scenes from a misty past, but it was not very long ago at all that Monique Lamoureux was learning the game in the classic northern way. Now she and her sister, Joceylne, are 20-year-old collegiate forwards and the second-youngest players on the United States women's roster, forming a potent scoring partnership in the push for Olympic gold.
They have come a long way in a short time, and they have done it all together.
"Whenever people have asked in the past about what my dreams are, I've always answered it with 'our' or 'we,'" Monique Lamoureux said. "All of the dreams I have regarding hockey or other sports has always included my sister."
One thing the identical twins have done together is transfer from one college to another after their freshman year. In 2008-09 they were standouts for Minnesota - Monqiue was a second-team all-American and the Golden Gophers' top scorer with 75 points in 40 games; Jocelyne was second with 65 in 40 - but for 2009-10 they switched to North Dakota to be close to home.
That will make it easier for their father, Jean-Pierre, who won two NCAA championships as a backup goalie for the Fighting Sioux in the early 1980s, and mother, Linda, who also competed for the University of North Dakota as a swimmer. Their sons are spread across the United States and Canada on minor-league and college teams.
But that is for next year. For now, Monique and Jocelyne are pursuing their Olympic dreams.
"Finding out Jocelyne and I will both be going to the Olympics was awesome," Monique said when she heard she had been chosen by coach Mark Johnson for the Vancouver Games. "When it set in, we both looked at each other and gave each other a look that I don't know how to describe."
Jocelyne said: "This has been a goal of ours ever since 1996, when women first competed for hockey at the Olympics. For Monique and I it has always been 'we' and now we are one step closer to achieving the ultimate goal of winning a gold medal."
