Five years ago, Gabrielle Santerre had no chance of being where she is now.
Her jersey and the team it represents didn’t exist, but now she’s stepping onto home ice as national champion.
“I’m proud of what I have accomplished but nothing is compared to what we just experienced this year,” said Santerre.
In just her second year at Bishop’s University, Santerre is a standout. Like so many other girls, she started playing on a boys’ team, switching to women’s hockey as a teenager.
“My first few months with women’s hockey was kind of hard. I was in the penalty box quite often,” she said.
She led the league in points this season and is the only women’s player in Quebec university hockey history to be named rookie of the year and MVP in the same season.
Santerre turned down two full scholarships at D1 universities in the United States — from hockey powerhouses Clarkson and Colgate — to play in Quebec instead.
“A lot of people were questioning my decision of choosing Bishop’s, it’s a young program. Not a lot of people would have thought that, but I like to do things my own way,” she said, including helping to build the women’s hockey program.
For head coach Valerie Bois, that first year meant doing everything.
“I was full time here doing actual full-time coaching, but also doing Les Allentours. I was doing the Zamboni, front desk and coaching,” said Bois, the Bishop’s Gaiters head coach.
In four short years, Bishop’s has managed to take on and beat much larger schools.
In the finals, it faced the University of Waterloo — a school with an enrollment nearly 15 times higher.
Santerre scored the opening goal in a 3-0 victory, capping off her sophomore season with the top prize.
“I made a dream board when I first came in here, and it was to win the national and in my head there was no way that I could accomplish that in two years,” she said.
Santerre hopes to play in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) but not before finishing her university career with Bishop’s and possibly a few more national championships.
