Marie-Philip Poulin has won the Northern Star Award.
Known as Captain Clutch for delivering when it matters most, Poulin is the first female hockey player to receive the honour as Canada’s top athlete.
Poulin led Canada to a world championship title and a gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The 31-year-old from Beauceville, Que. scored twice in the 3-2 gold-medal win over the U.S. in Beijing. And the Canadian captain is the only hockey player to have scored goals in four different Olympic hockey finals.
She leads the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association’s Dream Gap Tour in scoring this year with eight goals and four assists in seven games.
In June, Poulin signed on as a player development consultant with the Montreal Canadiens.
The voting panel of sports journalists and broadcasters from across the country met virtually on Wednesday to debate and select this year’s winner.
Finalists for this year’s award included tennis player Félix Auger-Aliassime, golfer Brooke Henderson, swimmer Summer McIntosh, cross-country skier Brian McKeever and Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar.
Until this year, the Northern Star Award was known as the Lou Marsh Award in honour of a former sports editor of the Toronto Star. The name was changed after concerns were raised about racist language used by Marsh, who died in 1936, during his years of sportswriting.