Written by Barkman Concrete Published on June 18th, 2012
Our long time sales representative (now retired) Mike Dyck’s 23-year-old granddaughter, Jocelyne Larocque, recently helped our national women’s hockey team defeat their U.S. rivals 5-4 in overtime, in Burlington, Vermont to win the 2012 IIHF World Women’s Hockey Championship. This was Jocelyne’s second year with the national team, and her seventh year in total as a member of Team Canada having spent five years playing in the Under-22 program. Playing at an international level has enabled her to travel all over North America and Europe. In the last seven years Jocelyne has been to Switzerland; Norway; Sweden; and to Germany a total of five times. Which is probably almost as often as the Barkman management team?
Jocelyne began her hockey career playing on boys’ hockey teams in Ste. Anne and Lorette. As is often the case with talented young hockey players, to further her career, and play at a more competitive level, Jocelyne had to leave home at an early age. At 15, she moved to Alberta to play for the Calgary Oval Xtreme, a senior women’s hockey team competing in the WWHL. It was quite the culture shock to suddenly find herself playing alongside several Team Canada members such as Hayley Wickenheiser and Cassie Campbell. Women she admired and had looked up to for so many years.
After three years in Calgary Jocelyne accepted a four-year hockey scholarship at the University of Minnesota, Duluth where last May she received her degree in Accounting. While in Duluth she helped her Bulldogs team win two national championships, resulting in visits to the White House where the team was met and congratulated by President Bush, and again two years later by President Obama.
During her four years at Duluth Jocelyne received numerous personal awards including being twice named to the national All American team. In her final year, Jocelyne was named Captain of the team and respond by winning the “NCAA Top Defenseman” award. She also was named the WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year,” an award she is especially proud of.
Jocelyne’s goals are to again make the national team next year, and compete at the 2013 World Championships in Ottawa. Jocelyne is hoping that the following year she’ll be able to realize her lifelong dream and be able to “Lace ‘em up” and skate for Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.