For a 17th season, France Beaudoin and her team are entertaining Quebecers on Saturday nights with their popular show En direct de l’univers. Every week, Beaudoin has a different guest in the hot seat, and she gives us an up-close and personal look at them thanks to her exceptional interviewing skills and their own musical taste. Before the show, guest have to answer a lengthy questionnaire about their musical preference and songs that have marked them. The team then picks some of those songs and gets people to perform them live on TV for the guest. What has that got to do with the PWHL, you say? Well, last Saturday, the guest was none other than Montreal Captain Marie-Philip Poulin.
It’s been 15 years since Poulin became a national icon with her two-goal performance in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics final against Team USA. Since that win, she’s received a lot of attention and coverage, and deservedly so. From being called women’s hockey Sidney Crosby to becoming a star in her own right with unrivalled skills and dedication, Poulin has won the nation’s heart and three Olympic gold medals, a silver one, and numerous World Championships.
On Saturday night, though, he got to look past the glory and the highlight reels of Captain Clutch, through her musical tastes and plenty of memories. She walked onto the stage to the song Provocante by Marjo, with former teammate Gillian Ferrari singing. Beaudoin started the night by letting us know that initially, the skating ace was made to figure skate by her parents. Still, by the end of the year, at four years old, when organizers wanted to dress her as a princess or a doll like the other little girls, she pleaded with her parents to get dressed as a firefighter with black skates like the boys. The following season, she played hockey, and what a talent would Canada have missed had she not been allowed to make the switch!
That set the tone for the evening, and the traditional show opening medley kicked off with Gregory Charles on piano. Patrice Belanger took the stage singing Les Colocs’ hit Passe moe la puck (her letting off steam song), wearing a Victoire jersey, and he was soon joined by stand-up comedian Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, who sang Just A Kid by Simple Plan (one of her favourite bad songs and a song she’ll never get tired of). The medley also included some Black Eyed Peas with I Gotta Feeling, with a quick wink to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin' and the Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). This is me, a song she has to listen to before every game (who knew that hockey players were superstitious), Abba’s Mamma Mia (a song she loved as a teenager), sang by Elyse Marquis, and Man! I Feel Like A Woman (one of her favourite childhood songs, sung by her cousin Marie-Pier Noreau) was also included, before we were taken back to Poulin’s roots in Beauce. Beauceville native Hugo Bolduc sang On jase de toi (a song she loves to sing and a massive hit for Beauceron band Noir Silence). Then, Charles broke into Danza Kuduro, a song she confesses makes her sing, before her parents appeared on stage to sing La Bottine Souriante’s Le Ziguezon, turning the stage into a proper Beauceron party.
Beaudoin then guided her to talk about leaving her family behind at 15 and moving to Montreal despite speaking very little English. Ontarian Tyler Shaw was also present to sing his hit With You, a bilingual song that resonates with her, given that her wife, Laura Stacey, speaks English, while she speaks French. One of her cousins, Patsy Poulin Veilleux, sang the female part. The athlete spoke candidly about her relationship with Stacey, noting that, on the road, they are teammates and not a couple, sleeping in different rooms. Meanwhile, at home, they try not to take hockey home.
Poulin was touched when she saw her 92-year-old grandmother, Julienne Bisson, take to the stage to sing the traditional song Y’en a pas comme elle, and tears started flowing. That wasn’t the only traditional song, though. Stacey also got on stage to sing Prout-Prout (one of the first songs Poulin remembers) in French, stepping out of her comfort zone but showing what she can do in her second language. She really deserves some credit for all her efforts. Interestingly, she keeps apologizing to the media for her French in post-game pressers, but she’s terrific - much better than many people who have lived in the province longer than her. No disrespect to Montreal Canadiens’ captain Nick Suzuki, but Stacey has gone to a whole other level.
Beaudoin also took Poulin down memory lane to the Vancouver Olympics, where she got to room with her idols, Kim St-Pierre, Charline Labonte, and Caroline Ouellette, who were on hand to sing one of their training songs, I believe. Annie Villeneuve sang the Celine Dion classic, The Power of the Dream, while we got to see some old Poulin pictures and some archive footage of her.
France D’Amour took to the stage to sing the hit from the movie Les Boys 3 film: Le Girls (Boys) Blues Band and was joined not only by St-Pierre, Ouellette, and Stacey but also by GM Daniele Sauvageau and teammates Alexandra Labelle, Erin Ambrose, and training camp invitee Audrey-Anne Veillette. They were soon joined by plenty of wedding guests singing It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, just like they had a year ago at the party. Labonte, Karell Emard, Catherine Ward, Laurianne Rougeau, and Jill Saulnier made an appearance for that number, which got the captain out of her seat and singing.
Overall, it was an incredibly entertaining hour of television that allowed the public to learn a bit more about one of their hero. It’s rare to see Poulin accept being in the spotlight like that, but Beaudoin was able to put her at ease, and it looked like she had almost forgotten that she was on live TV. What you see is what you get with the league MVP, and if anyone ever doubted that, they were proven wrong on Saturday night. The final number featured Roy-Desmarais singing her favorite Karaoke Song, Mr. Big’s To Be With You, and another song she’ll never get sick of: Et c’est pas fini. The whole country is hoping that was a message, and Poulin’s career is nowhere near finished…