Laura Stacey plays a physical game on the ice. She goes in the corners, takes hits, and defends her teammates when necessary. In short, she’s a warrior. A real one.
So yesterday, when the score was 3-2 for Ottawa with seven minutes left in the third period and the team's public relations person came to ask if we had any special requests for post-game interviews, this writer thought to take one of team leaders and immediately asked for Laura Stacey.
Why?
Because she wouldn't run away. She would answer every question and face the music, no matter how much pain the question might bring her, no matter how much she’d really want to be in front of 15 people questioning her about the team's loss.
Let’s be honest here.
No one from Montreal really wanted to talk about last night's game, quite understandably. A 3-2 loss after dominating in shots and constantly playing catch-up hockey. A fourth one-goal loss in as many playoff games in the franchise's history.No one truly wants to come and talk about it. But that's the job.
And just like we thought, Laura Stacey stood in front of the pack of reporters, faced adversity, and answered every question, without flinching. Not in eight words as some can do. Complete, thoughtful and honest answers, all with the emotion of an athlete who has lost an important match.
“It's tough. Hockey is tough,” Stacey said. “Had to take a deep breath before coming in here because it hurts. Losing hurts, especially in the playoffs when you want it that bad.”
Stacey was honest with the way her team played and didn't try to find excuses.
“They’re physical, they're fast, they're good on entries,” she said, talking about Ottawa. “We know all these things. And I don't think it was necessarily their game tonight that was anything special compared to ours. I think it's tiny little errors, tiny little things that we can tweak. But most importantly, I think we just need to focus on ourselves. We know that wasn't our best. We have a time to regroup. We if we put our best foot forth, our best game forth for 60 whole minutes, I think the result looks a lot different tonight.”
When a colleague talked about the team's fourth consecutive loss in the playoffs, she didn’t play the tape we've heard all week. She responded with her gut.
“Of course, it's tough to hear, especially being a leader on this team. You don't want to see that. You don't want to hear that. I feel it.”
Stacey also had the misfortune of finding herself on the ice when the winning goal was scored. And once again, when questioned about her read on how things unravelled, she didn't shy away.
“Yeah, that's tough. Again, you never want that to be the game-winning goal when you're on the ice. But I think at the end of the day, we were pressing, we were trying, we were trying to put that next goal in. We were creating chances down low. Sometimes it turns into those things. I don't have the answer for you. I'm gonna have to go watch it again. Obviously, it hurts.”
Stacey played more than 21 minutes. She had six shots on net. At the end of the third period, she tried everything to tie the game. And after the result we know, she answered the questions the same way she played her match.
Marie-Philip Poulin is Montreal’s captain. The soul of the team is Laura Stacey.