Catching up with the Lamoureuxs: Olympic heroes talk motherhood, 'One League,' fight for gender equity

Mike Murphy

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Catching up with the Lamoureuxs: Olympic heroes talk motherhood, 'One League,' fight for gender equity image

Back in February, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando won gold with the United States women’s national hockey team at the Pyeongchang Olympics. After winning two silver medals in Vancouver and Sochi, and a historic victory for gender equity with the #BeBoldForChange campaign, the Lamoureuxs finally reached the pinnacle of their sport. 

North Dakota’s favorite twin sisters both played critical roles in Team USA’s come-from-behind victory over Team Canada in the gold-medal game. Monique scored the game-tying goal on a breakaway 13:39 into the third period. Later, after a scoreless overtime, Jocelyne scored what is now perhaps the most famous goal in the history of women’s hockey in the shootout.

In other words, they both earned every ounce of their gold medals and then some.

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Life hasn’t slowed down much for the sisters since they made history together in South Korea. Monique joined the NHL Network as an analyst in March, and in May she announced on social media that she and husband Anthony Morando are expecting their first child. Two months later, Jocelyne announced that she and her husband Brent Davidson were also expecting. Pregnancy and motherhood are just two more epic journeys that the Lamoureuxs will go on together.

In June, the sisters formed a multi-year partnership with Comcast. Together, they will be ambassadors and spokespeople for the company’s corporate values initiatives. With Comcast, the Lamoureuxs aim to continue to promote gender equity, inclusion, and female empowerment. Clearly, their gold medals haven’t changed them. They are just as fierce, dedicated and authentic as they’ve always been. 

In a wide-ranging Q&A, Sporting News caught up with the twins to discuss gender equity in sports, a unified women’s hockey league, North Dakota, the Whitecaps, and their dogs.

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Note: Portions of the interview have been edited for brevity and clarity.

SPORTING NEWS: It sounds like it’s been a crazy few months for you both. What’s changed between winning gold in Pyeongchang and now?

MONIQUE LAMOUREUX-MORANDO: It’s been quite a different aftermath from our first two Olympics. The platform that being an Olympian gives you is pretty special, but being a gold medalist puts it on a whole other level.

I think the biggest and most impactful opportunity we’ve had is working with Comcast and their Internet Essentials program. It’s a program that has impacted six million people so far, providing them with internet access. And [Comcast] is expanding the program to low-income veterans, so to be a part of a company that is dedicated to giving back and making sure that everyone has internet access is really special to us.

SN: You each have a unique perspective on the internet's power as a tool to spark social change and challenge problems like gender equity. Is that part of the reason why that partnership formed?

JOCELYNE LAMOUREUX-DAVIDSON: Comcast is committed to its corporate values initiatives and giving back to the community. Internet Essentials is just one of those programs. … When you talk about the internet and what it can do for individuals, just in life — if you think about kids trying to get through school these days, you can’t get through high school without the internet. I don’t even know if you could get through middle school and elementary school now without the internet. Everything is there.

With our battle for gender equity, the internet was a powerful tool for us. We were able to share our story with millions of people because of the power of the internet. So, we’ve seen firsthand what that can do to create positive change and to create a movement for positivity in the gender equity space. 

MLM: Going off of that, I wouldn’t say that’s the reason why we’re working with Comcast, but I would say that what we’re passionate about it and our personal agendas aligned perfectly with what Comcast was doing with their corporate values initiative. When we were looking at our opportunities, it seemed like a perfect fit.

MORE: Women's hockey leagues set example for inclusivity in sports

SN: You both played a part in the #BeBoldForChange movement, you both spoke out against the University of North Dakota’s women’s hockey program shutting down, and now you’re both working with Comcast to make a difference. Do you feel a responsibility to use your platform as athletes to affect change?

MLM: Growing up our parents gave us all the same opportunities that our four older brothers got. They never said no to us or no to something because we were girls. And when we went to Shattuck St. Mary’s for high school, the girls’ hockey team had all of the same opportunities as the boys.

It wasn’t until we went to college and started our careers on the national team that we started to really see and feel the inequities that a lot of women have to face in the NCAA and amateur hockey. It really opened up our eyes to something that we were passionate about outside of hockey. Gender inequity isn’t exclusive to hockey; you see it in every walk of life, in every profession. It’s something that needs to be changed.

The program at UND shutting down is just another thing that we’re hoping we can be a part of a positive solution moving forward. It’s extremely unfortunate and we didn’t plan on having it fall into our laps, but it is something that we’re really passionate about. We’re hoping to find a solution.

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SN: The idea of #OneLeague and the NHL’s involvement seems like it is an inescapable issue right now for women’s hockey. Do you feel one league is the best path forward?

JLD: Absolutely. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on our national team or on Canada’s national team who would think differently. I think when you look at the big picture, you have to look at the growth and ask how you grow the fan base. Having the best players in the world play in two different leagues is not going to help that.

I think Gary Bettman has been supportive of women’s hockey and the CWHL has been very open and upfront about wanting the NHL to take over. You need that on both ends, obviously. The support of the NHL would be imperative. The WNBA is a great example of that. You need the best players in one league. 

It is a business. We’re not mute to that, but our gold medal game in Pyeongchang was the most-viewed late night show on NBC Sports in history, regardless of the sport or gender. I think that also speaks volumes. The interest is there — women’s hockey is, I think, the second-fastest growing sport in America and it’s just going to continue to grow.

I think if you can create one league that gives young girls an opportunity to watch and give them role models, you’re going to grow the sport and grow the fan base. It’s really important for this sport to take the next step. There has to be one league.

WATCH: Jocelyne Lamoureux's gold medal-winning goal gets a nickname

SN: Do you have any thoughts on your former team, the Minnesota Whitecaps, joining the NWHL?

MLM: When you look back at the Whitecaps and how they started and how far they’ve come with the Brodt family, Laura Halldorson, and Dwayne Schmidgall — the people who started the program. They’ve given so many opportunities to post-graduate players to continue to play and not have to move to play at an elite level. They’ve done such an amazing job.

I know that joining a professional league has been a goal of the organization for awhile. I think it’s a good step in the right direction. To go off of what Jocelyne was saying, I hope that in the near future there’s one league that everyone is playing under and I hope the Whitecaps are there as well.

SN: You have so many shared interests in hockey, the partnership with Comcast, and all of your other shared goals outside the sport. So, how is it that you have such different breeds of dogs with Mille and Diesel? 

MLM: When getting a dog I knew I wanted a lower energy dog, or maybe on the medium scale. When doing the research, basset hounds were one of the breeds that came up. I didn’t want a small dog. I didn’t want a huge dog. A basset hound is a medium-sized dog on really short legs, so it’s the perfect fit. [Millie] and I go on long walks, but at pretty slow speeds.

They’re great family dogs, which is awesome. We have a little niece and nephew who love to run around, and we’re both going to be adding to our families soon. So, to have a good family dog is really important.

JLD: I guess the difference in dogs is kind of a good example of how we are outside of every day training and life. Our dog loves to be at the lake, and loves the water, and loves to be active. But, I guess I have to be honest, we did get [Diesel] on sale. But we love him no less than if he was at full price.

My husband [Brent] really wanted an active dog. I do love Millie, and Basset hounds, but my husband really wanted an active dog.

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SN: Speaking of building families, what has it been like to train while pregnant? Have there been any unexpected challenges? Also, do you have any post-pregnancy plans regarding joining one of the leagues, and more specifically your futures with USA Hockey? 

MLM: The long-term plan is to take the year off from hockey and then join back up for a national team camp next summer. Then, hopefully, we want to go for a fourth Olympics. There’s no short-term plan as far as joining a team at the end of the year or anything like that. We don’t want to rush that process.

We’ve been training through our pregnancies. I’d say it’s a pretty big adjustment. Once you get past your first trimester you have to start monitoring the intensity of your workouts and your duration as well. Pretty much for elite athletes who get pregnant, it’s a “try less” mentality. Any elite athlete will tell you that that is completely out of their comfort zone.

I’ve actually been pretty sick for the last four months, so there’s a lot of adjustment with the day-to-day listening to your body. Also just taking enough time to rest to make that I’m healthy and the baby stays healthy. My husband has actually been training us for the last four years and has been training us through our pregnancies as well. It’s great to have someone who is very knowledgeable in that space. He’s been helping us train so that once we have our babies we can rebound as fast as possible and get back into shape.

JLD: Just to bring this conversation full circle, we’ve been able to share a lot of our workouts and our day-to-day training on our social media pages. That’s important to us, to share our story and what we are going through. Some days are way better than others. Sometimes after training we feel useless because we’re so tired and drained.

We want to be an example that you can continue to train through pregnancy and be healthy. We’re still driven to play in a fourth Olympics. Being pregnant and having a family is just going to be a part of that journey. We’re excited to share it. Hopefully that will inspire and motivate other moms and show what we can do.

Mike Murphy