VANCOUVER — Marie-Philip Poulin sat in the Team Canada dressing room, 20 minutes into the gold medal game at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, trying not to smile.

She had just scored two goals in less than three minutes against their U.S. rivals. And while there were still 40 minutes left to play, Poulin was also an 18-year-old soaking in her first-ever Olympics.

“Oh my god, did that just happen?” she thought at the time.

The first goal Poulin scored held up as the winner for Canada’s third-straight Olympic gold medal and — with more than 19 million viewers in Canada — made her a household name across the country.

On Wednesday, playing in the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s neutral-site game in Vancouver, Poulin returned to the scene where she first announced herself on the international stage — and scored her first game-winning goal at Rogers Arena in nearly 15 years. Another two-goal performance was a fitting return to the city where she (publicly) launched perhaps the greatest career in the history of women’s hockey.

“It’s kind of crazy coming back here,” Poulin told The Athletic. “It was my first Olympic experience … it was such a dream.”

The 2010 golden goal was Poulin’s first clutch moment, but certainly not the last in a career spent rising to the occasion.

She’s scored the game-winning goal in three Olympics and she’s the only player (male or female) to score in four consecutive gold medal games at the tournament. She has four Olympic medals and 12 at women’s worlds.

Now 33 years old, Poulin is still at the top of her game and on track to lead Team Canada on another gold medal collision course with the U.S. at the 2026 Olympics in Milan, only 13 months away.

But it was in Vancouver where Poulin burst onto the international scene and began her meteoric rise.

“Internally we knew she was the real deal and in 2010 she told the world,” said former Team Canada forward Gina Kingsbury, now the team’s general manager. “It created a lot of expectations around her. But I don’t think anyone could have expected and predicted that she would have been as successful as she’s been and as great as she is.”

Twenty years ago, Pierre Rougeau was watching his daughter, Lauriane, play in a local tournament in Montreal when another parent approached him.

Rougeau was the coach of a girls team that played all-star tournaments in the summer, and the parent had seen a young Poulin play.

“Hey, you really have to watch this girl,” he said. “She’s really something.”

At the time, Poulin was only 13 years old and playing boys hockey in her hometown of Beauceville, Que., almost 200 miles outside of Montreal. By the summer, Poulin was turning heads on the Ice Storm roster.

“She was a step above everybody,” said Lauriane Rougeau, who played in two Olympics for Team Canada alongside Poulin. “She was our top scorer, even though she was probably a year younger than all the girls. We won a lot of tournaments because of her.”

Word continued to spread about Poulin as she made her Team Quebec debut as a 14-year-old at the Canadian National U18 championship, and as she moved to Montreal and played high school hockey in the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

“I remember playing against her and being like, ‘Oh, that’s that kid’,” said former Team Canada forward Jayna Hefford, who played five seasons in the CWHL. “Even at that age, I was pretty convinced that she was going to be a star.”

Poulin was named the top forward at the first-ever U18 women’s world championship at 16 years old and won tournament MVP the next year. She was so dominant that, one year out from the 2010 Olympics, the Team Canada braintrust wanted to see how the teen phenom could look on the national women’s team. In 2009, at 17, Poulin became the third-youngest player to ever represent Canada at the women’s worlds, and was invited to Olympic Centralization — the grueling, months-long Canadian Olympic tryout camp in Calgary.

“She just had the package,” said Mel Davidson, Canada’s head coach at the time. “When you see that humbleness, you see that talent, you see that compete, you see that discipline, (that’s) when you bring people in.”

Given Poulin’s age, Davidson wanted her to live with a billet family. But at the behest of veterans Caroline Ouellette, Kim St-Pierre and Charline Labonté, Poulin lived with them in what teammates called “The French House.”

“We thought we could really be good mentors for her and help her to that first difficult centralization,” said Ouellette. “My first time was much harder than I could have anticipated. You start in August, you train six days a week … the schedule is pretty crazy.”

Living together meant Poulin had three French-speaking veterans to take her under their wing as she navigated a new language and tried to make her first Olympic team. At the time, Poulin didn’t cook much, so the players made meals and ate together every night.

On one occasion, the veterans had Poulin make dinner for the house and she spent hours on the phone with her mom, Danye, learning how to make a perfect filet mignon.

“We called her mom and made a joke that it was terrible,” Ouellette said. “Her mom was like, ‘No, that’s not possible!’ We all still laugh about that today.”

On the ice, meanwhile, there was little doubt from teammates that Poulin would make the team.

“All of our eyes were opened very quickly,” said former Team Canada forward Jennifer Botterill. “The skill that she showed at that point in time (was not something) you saw very often in the game.”

At 18, Poulin already had a dynamic skill set — a quick shot, good hands and great skating ability — and an elite work ethic. She trained hard in the gym, and always spent extra time on the ice before and after practice. And despite her prodigy status, Poulin was also accepting of whatever role the coaching staff might give her, which ultimately led to a spot on the fourth line at the 2010 Olympics.

“If she didn’t have the compete, the discipline and that humbleness and willingness to accept the role and do what was necessary, she wouldn’t have been on the team,” Davidson said. “She always expected to earn everything and she never took anything for granted.”

As the host nation, there was a lot of pressure on the Canadians. But with so many established stars on the team — such as Hefford, Ouellette and Hayley Wickenheiser — Poulin wasn’t expected to be big game player in 2010. According to Davidson, when Poulin’s line with Kingsbury and Botterill was sent on the ice in the gold medal game, there was no expectation for Poulin to do anything other than “don’t get scored on.”

Still, as Botterill brought the puck into the zone less than 15 minutes into the championship game, Poulin found a soft spot in the slot and fired a quick shot past U.S. netminder Jessie Vetter.

“I honestly don’t know how it happened,” Poulin said.

“It was a beautiful rocket of a shot,” said Botterill. “For her to just be calm and collected and deliver the most skillful, beautiful shot at that moment was amazing.”

Ouellette had seen Poulin take that exact shot “thousands” of times in practice. Before every game that year, they’d take turns shooting from that exact spot. When she got the chance, in the biggest moment, Poulin was ready.

“She knows how to be the best in the biggest moments and that was just the start of an incredible career,” said Ouellette. “There’s so many players that have been compared to her since. But I don’t think there has ever been anyone close. And to me, she’s the best player to have ever played the game.”

Poulin wasn’t expecting just how much her life would change when she returned home to Beauceville after Vancouver.

She was still weeks away from her 19th birthday and was now labeled as not just the future face of hockey in Canada but the next big star in women’s hockey. There was a lot of media coverage and many demands for her time.

“There were no agents back in the day, so there was nobody taking care of you in that sense,” Poulin said. “It was like, you have to do this, this, this, this. And I was trying to choose my university as well. It was a lot, all at the same time.”

Poulin ultimately committed to Boston University and was able to spend time being a regular student-athlete.

“It could have been easy to just fly on that high after a gold medal,” she said. “But I think just being back to school, getting to know other people, making new friends and living that real life, I think happened at the right time.”

By the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Poulin was no longer the new kid on the roster; she was well on her way to becoming the best player in the world. Hefford, who retired as one of the all-time greats in 2015, believed Poulin was already the best player at that point in her career.

In the final, Canada was down 2-0 with only five minutes remaining. And the gold medal looked all but lost until Brianne Jenner scored to halve the deficit. With less than a minute to go, coach Kevin Dineen drew up a play to get Poulin the puck in a shooting lane. She scored to force overtime and tallied yet another game-winning goal.

Poulin was named Canada’s captain ahead of the 2015 women’s world championships, right before a string of losses to the Americans in major international competition, including the 2018 Olympics.

“It took a long time for her to win as captain,” said Kingsbury. “And I know she wore that really, really heavily on her shoulders.”

She ended that drought with the game-winning goal at the 2021 women’s worlds in Calgary.

At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, she again scored the game-winner. It was the third Olympic gold medal won on her stick, each attached to unique pressure — being the kid, meeting new expectations, and getting gold back — that she’d been able to deliver through.

“I’ve never met any athlete that is able to respond to pressure as well as she does,” said Kingsbury. “I can’t think of anyone who is that good at being able to capitalize on those big moments.”

What has long set Poulin apart from other stars in women’s hockey is the unmatched preparation that gives her confidence and poise when games matter the most.

“It’s not like it’s in my head, like ‘I’m going to score that (big goal),’’ Poulin said. “But I’m always going to train hard and get that extra rep, just to make sure that when it’s time, I’ll be ready.”

Now, more than a decade into her career, Poulin is as motivated as ever, and playing full-time in the PWHL as captain of the Montreal Victoire — one of the league’s original six franchises.

“This new league is something that I’m proud to be a part of,” she said. “I get to wake up every morning and do this as a living and that’s pretty amazing.”

On Wednesday, the league brought her back to Vancouver as part of the “PWHL Takeover Tour.” Her game-winner — and insurance goal — scored in front of a crowd of more than 19,000 fans, helped move Montreal to first in the league standings.

“There’s special memories here and (that’s) another one tonight,” Poulin told reporters after the game. “Being able to play in front of a sold out crowd in this new league representing Montreal, there’s no better feeling.”

And while Poulin is currently focused on her PWHL season, the 2026 Milan Olympics is fast approaching. It will be her fifth Olympics and the pressure to win — potentially her last gold medal — will be high against a young, highly skilled U.S. roster.

Poulin is taking a modest approach.

“Hopefully I can make (the roster),” she said.

But when the Games begin in a little over a year, she’ll be expected to help lift the team to another gold medal showdown. When she gets there, it’s easy to imagine the most clutch player in the history of the game making something happen.

“She’s one of a kind,” said Kingsbury. “And we’re just so lucky she’s Canadian.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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