Ann-Renée Desbiens: Two Autographed Cards

The NHL All-Star Weekend is underway, and as I mentioned last week, it featured a 3-on-3 two-period game pitting ten players each from the women's Team Canada and Team USA squads going head-to-head, with the Canadians coming out victorious 2-1 on the strong goaltending of La Malbaie's Ann-Renée Desbiens.

At 25 years old, Desbiens is just coming into her own at her position under the most pressure anyone's possibly ever felt before, as she's had to follow in the footsteps and fill the shoes of legendary trailblazers Kim St-Pierre (2002, 2006 and 2010 Olympic gold medalist) and Charline Labonté (also a three-time winner, in 2006, 2010 and 2014) while sharing duties with a 30-year-old Geneviève Lacasse (2014 gold medalist) who is playing like she's still in her prime, as well as 33-year-old (and 2010 and 2014 gold medalist) Shannon Szabados.

The standard for Canada is nothing short of gold, so Desbiens' trio of silver medals (2011 U-18s, 2015 World Championships and 2018 Olympics) may make it seem like she's underachieving, but all signs point to the contrary: she's actually been improving from year to year ever since starring in nets for the University of Wisconsin Badgers (save percentages of .941, .960 and .963 in her three seasons as starter, pitching 56 shutouts in the process - 13 more than the previous record - and going from Top Female Collegiate Player Of The Year finalist to winner) to earning more and more games with the national team to today's impressive showing on the sport's biggest stage of the women's season.

She is definitely starting to look worthy of her (and my) childhood idol Patrick Roy's #33 jersey at exactly the right age for it: old enough to know what to expect from the game, and young enough for the body to execute what the mind tells it to - all without playing actual pro hockey this season.

I can't wait for the women to have another professional league playing in Canada again so I can see her play in person in more than just scrimmages.

Here she is wearing Canada's 2014-15 pseudo-vintage white ("home") uniform with "CANADA" written diagonally, New York Rangers-style, on card #64 from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Team Canada Juniors/Women set:

 And here she is wearing the traditional (away) uniform with the "Hockey Canada" logo, on card #99 from UD's 2015-16 Team Canada Juniors/Women set:

She signed both in blue sharpie with her number (33) tagged at the end during the 2018 Olympic cycle, which is why she's my entry for that number in my Team Canada Numbers Project.

You can see in both pictures that she holds her catching glove fairly high and straight up, which is something I advise against for the pro men, but because she's only 5'9", it helps her cover the top and middle of the left side. It leaves her vulnerable under the elbow, and she has to make up for it by swatting down more often than she pulls her arm up to compensate, a move that is a split-second slower than the opposite. She handles it quite well, though, but it might hinder her if she were to sign in a men's league that has hard shots going over 90 mph - think the NHL, AHL, KHL or the Swedish League. She could probably try playing in a systems-based finesse league like they have in Switzerland or France... or someone could come up with a viable way for the women to play 40 to 55 games per season in their own league as their full-time job.

Laura Fortino: Three Autographed Cards

The NHL announced it will hold a Women's 3-on-3 tournament during the All-Star Weekend, featuring an American and a Canadian team facing off, with 10 players suiting up for each. Of course, that means 13 players from World Championship and/or Olympic rosters didn't make the cut for reasons ranging from unavailability to marketability to the NHL not having French-speaking decision-makers and the PWHPA choosing to play its run of exhibition games in places like Hartford, Etobicoke, Hudson (New Hampshire), and Buffalo instead of, say, Montréal, where half the Canadian Olympic team played for the CWHL's Montréal Canadiennes, the team that has won most of the league's championships in ended up as finalists almost every other time.

All of this to say that the only three Quebecers who made Team Canada were Marie-Philip Poulin (the current best player in the world), Mélodie Daoust and goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens, leaving out Lauriane Rougeau, Annie Bélanger, Catherine Daoust, Tracy-Ann Lavigne, Geneviève Lacasse, Mélanie Desrochers, Sarah Lefort, Ann-Sophie Bettez, Sophie Brault, Kim Deschenes, Maude Gélinas, Karell Emard, Marie-Soleil Deschenes, Genevieve Bannon, other francophones such as Ontario's Carolyne Prevost and Marlene Boissonnault from New Brunswick and current Québec residents Emma Martin, Hilary Knight, Jill Saulnier and Erin Ambrose.

That being said, the 20 players who will be there are, indeed, among the 50 best players in the world - roughly the same percentage as the"real" All-Star Game, which will be played without the likes of Alex Ovechkin (declined invitation), Marc-André Fleury (declined), Darcy Kuemper (injury), Jake Guentzel (injury), Johnny Gaudreau (not invited), and Nikita Kucherov (not invited) and Sidney Crosby (missed nearly the entire first half of the season to injury).

Among those who made the cut is defender Laura Fortino, the CWHL's first-overall pick in 2014 who assisted on the gold-winning goal by Poulin at the 2014 Sochi Games in her first Olympic experience and helped Canada capture silver at the 2018 games in Peyongchang. She also has World Championship gold (2012), silver (2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017) and bronze (2019) medalsas well as two U-18 silvers (2008 and 2009).

Professionally, she wore the assistant-captain's "A" for the Brampton Thunder and Markham Thunder. She was mostly a point-per-game player when the team was in Brampton, finishing close to forward Jamie-Lee Rattray for the team's scoring crown. She rarely gets called for penalties, is a quick skater and controls the play very well.

Here she is wearing Canada's 2014-15 pseudo-vintage white ("home") uniform with "CANADA" written diagonally, New York Rangers-style, on card #55 from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Team Canada Juniors/Women set:

And here she is wearing the 2015-16 uniform with the "Hockey Canada" logo (first worn 2008-13), from UD's 2016-17 Team Canada Juniors/Women set:

On the left is the base card (#22 in the collection), while the card on the right is #POE-42 from the Program Of Excellence sub-set.

The Cornell University graduate, College All-Star and 2015-16 CWHL Defenceman (sic) of the Year signed all three in blue sharpie after a game against the Canadiennes in 2017or 2018. She fits perfectly as #8 in my Team Canada Numbers Project.

Geneviève Lacasse Autographed Card

I couldn't let International Women's Day go by without featuring another lady from Team Canada, so I decided to go with the losing goalie from the Clarkson Cup final pitting Les Canadiennes de Montréal against last year's winners, the Calgary Inferno, Geneviève Lacasse.

Lacasse has been with the Canadian National Team since 2009, usually suiting up as third goalie behind Charline Labonté and Shannon Szabados; her medal count reads as follows: gold at the 2012 World Championships, silver at the 2013 Worlds, and Olympic gold in 2014.

In College, she played for the Providence Friars, pretty much writing the team's record book and captaining it in her final season, as can be attested by this spectacular picture:

Following her collegiate career, which saw her earn her Master's Degree in marketing, she was drafted by the Boston Blades, winning the Clarkson Cup twice in a three-year span, as well as goaltending titles in both her rookie 2012-13 season and 2014-15. She was acquired by the Inferno late last August in a trade that sent Tara Watchorn to Boston, and finished third in the CWHL in save percentage and fourth in goals-against average:

From CWHL.com

Here she is sporting Canada's #31 red and black jersey on card #71 from Upper Deck's 2015 Team Canada Women set, which she signed in blue sharpie:

Of note that as a child of a military serviceman, she was born in Montréal and mostly raised in Ontario; she went to six different high schools spread across two provinces and two states: École Secondaire Catholique Marie-Rivier in Kingston (Ontario), Collège Charles-Lemoyne in Ville Ste-Catherine (Québec), École Secondaire de Mortagne in Boucherville (Québec), Kingston Collegial and Vocational Institute in Kingston (Ontario), Lake Forest Academy (Chicago, IL), and Marian High School (Detroit, MI).

Marie-Philip Poulin Autographed Card

Earlier tonight, Les Canadiennes de Montréal won the Clarkson Cup, the CWHL's championship title, by defeating last year's winners, the Calgary Inferno, 3-1 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata (Ottawa).

Scoring the winning goal was captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who has been called the Sydney Crosby of women's hockey. She kind of has a knack for that, as she scored both goals in Team Canada's 2010 Olympic 2-0 gold medal win against Team USA and the tying goal (with 55 seconds left on the clock) and overtime winner at the 2014 Sochi games as well.

And yet, upon scoring the game-winner again tonight and being given the Cup by Commissioner Brenda Andress, she got down on one knee to hand it to Caroline Ouellette, the first player in league history to reach 300 career points:

.@pou29 handing @couellette13 the cup pic.twitter.com/sVwV2jcHeB

— Women's Hockey Gifs (@CWHLHighlights) March 5, 2017

Indeed, if Poulin's the sport's Crosby, Ouellette is its Mario Lemieux, possibly the best to ever play the game, and Poulin's childhood idol dating back to Ouellette's and Canada's 2002 win at the Salt Lake City Games.

But the 25-year-old Poulin, 2007-08 Rookie of the Year and current perpetual league scoring leader and MVP is quickly becoming one to watch out for, as her knack for padding up the stats sheet is becoming the stuff legends.

Here she is on card #63 from Upper Deck's 2015 Team Canada Women set, sporting the country's red uniform with the captain's "C" featured prominently on her chest:

She signed it in blue sharpie, adding her uniform number (29).