Gloucester ringette goalie Nancy Blouin out to show she's among world's best
by David Sali, Orleans Weekly Journal

It's a good thing Nancy Blouin loves pressure, because in a few months she is going to face more of it than she ever has in her athletic career.

As one of three goalies chosen to play for Team Canada at the world ringette championships in Finland this November, Blouin will be the defending champions' last line of defence when Canada looks to retain its No. 1 standing in the sport it invented almost 40 years ago.

Rest easy, folks. If anyone is tailor-made for coming up with the big save when the game is on the line, it's Blouin.

"The closer the game, the better," says the 28-year-old from Blackburn Hamlet. "I 'd much rather face lots of shots."

But Blouin, a 19-year veteran of the Gloucester Ringette Association, is comfortable playing just about any type of game.

She proved that at the national team selection camp earlier this month in Winnipeg, where she faced the fewest shots of all six goalies at the tryout but also had the best save percentage.

"I couldn't afford a letdown," she says matter-of-factly. "That's when you're standing around and you get cold and you're not as focused."

Staying focused on the ring has never been a problem for the self-confessed fitness nut.

In this case, the numbers really do tell the story - even though Blouin herself has lost track of most of them.

In 19 seasons, Blouin has been named the all-star goalie in her age division at the national championships three times. She played in the first worlds when Gloucester hosted the event and placed fourth in 1990.

That much she's sure of. Just don't expect the University of Ottawa business grad to tell you how many national championships she's appeared in, or even how many medals she's won.

The first answer, she thinks, is somewhere around nine. The second is six or seven - either three or four gold medals to go with three silvers.

Ironically, Blouin is an accountant for a living. Maybe after dealing with all those figures all day, she just wants to forget about stats when she gets to the rink.

"I'm so bad for details," she says with a self-deprecating laugh.

"Fortunately, I've played for a great organization."

Blouin might not like to gush about her achievements, but thankfully others in the sport are more than willing to do it for her.

"The two biggest things about her are her physical fitness - she's in excellent shape - and her mental toughness," says Team Canada assistant coach Danielle Poirier, Blouin's teammate in Gloucester for five seasons until she retired to focus on coaching last year.

"She's a good all-around goaltender. She covers the net well - she's always in the right place at the right time."

Poirier thinks back to 1998, the last time Gloucester's Intermediate team won the Canadian title. The Devils faced Alberta in the final and were "outshot something like 35-15," she says.

Blouin shut out the Albertans 3-0. For a goalie who loves facing lots of shots, that's playing right into her hands.

"We probably should have lost 10-3 instead of winning 3-0," Poirier says. "Nancy was outstanding."

But before this season, Blouin felt something was missing. After nearly two decades of devoting her winters to ringette, she stopped playing regularly and switched to hockey.

"Like when you play any sport, it's going to get stale at a certain point," she says. "I wasn't enjoying the game as much as I used to. I thrive on competition, and it just wasn't there."

Still, the chance to play for her country was too much to resist. She signed up for the Ontario regional tryout camp last fall and joined an Intermediate A team in Ottawa for the final month of the season to stay sharp, helping the team win the provincial title along the way.

"When I came back, I was so shocked at how much I enjoyed it," she says. "I started playing and I was like, 'Wow, I love this.' When I went to Winnipeg, I had a pretty good frame of mind."

She calls making the cut for Team Canada the highlight of her ringette career.

"The more time that goes by, the more exciting it seems to get," she says. "Once you put that Team Canada jersey on, it validates everything you've ever done. It's probably the first time in ringette I felt like I'm an elite athlete."

Nancy Blouin has finally figured out what everyone else in her sport already knew.