Monique (left) & Jocelyne Lamoreux, the first twins male or female to play USA Hockey at the Olympics

When I was in high school in Grand Forks, North Dakota I used to babysit for a family that lived in a house that was close to ours.  The couple were Pierre and Linda Lamoureux.  He was a former UND Sioux goalie and she had almost made it on to the US Olympic team for swimming and was also a triathlete.  When I first began babysitting the family they had four children; Jean-Philippe (4), Jaques (3), Pierre-Paul (2) and little baby Mario who was just a few month old.  About a year after I began babysitting the family identical twin girls Jocelyne & Monique were born.

The Lamoureux family, from left: Monique, Jocelyne, Linda, Pierre-Paul, Jean-Philippe, Jacques, Mario, and Pierre

You hear this said often in places like Grand Forks, ND – but in the case of the Lamoureux family it was absolutely true.  All of those kids could skate before they could walk.  And before they could skate or walk they could hold a hockey stick.  In fact, during the summer, just about as soon as they could sit as babies the young Lamoureux children would sit in the net and play goalie as the older siblings shot pucks at them.  It was never a question weather or not they would all play hockey.  They just all played hockey.  Jean-Philippe, 25, is now a goalie in the Buffalo Sabres system; Jacques, 23, an Air Force Academy forward; Pierre-Paul, 22, a University of North Dakota (UND) student volunteer assistant coach; and Mario, 21, a UND forward.

The Lamoureux Twins celebrate a goal.

Until they were high school the twins always played on boys teams.  They were so good that parents on opposing teams used to complain that it wasn’t fair to have girls play on the boys teams.  The weird thing was, the parents didn’t like it because Jocelyn & Monique helped the their team to win.  I believe that the twins would have kept playing on the boys team through high school if there wasn’t so much complaining from parents about them on the team.  What ended up happening was that they had to leave Grand Forks and their family for high school to continue playing hockey as there were no girls hockey teams in the town for them to compete on.

They currently play for UND and Team USA.  Many people say that Jocelyn and Monique are the two best women hockey players in the United States.  You can read more about them and how they came to be such great hockey players in this article USA Today wrote about them titled, “Lamoureux twins lead USA Hockey youth movement“.

Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux led USA to a 12-1 victory over China on Sunday.

Jocelyne and Monique left quite an impression in their Olympic debut, leading Team USA to a 12-1 win over China in the team’s first game in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Monique set a U.S. women’s single-record Olympic record with four assists and Jocelyne scored an amazing one-on-one goal in the second period. Jocelyne had two assists in the first period and two assists in the third period.

Team USA outshot China 61-7.

Next up for Team USA is another preliminary-round game against Russia at 4:30 p.m on Tuesday.  The game will be televised on MSNBC.

My parents are going to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics this year.  They have tickets for the Women’s Hockey Gold Medal game.  They wouldn’t want to miss it this year for the world.

UPDATE:

U.S. thrashes Russia Tuesday 13-0 in women’s hockey

Twin sisters Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux were among 10 goal-scorers for the Americans, who followed up their 12-1 opening win over China with another exhibition of their skill and depth over two dominant periods before cooling it down in the third.

The Americans, who are 2-0 in Group B, advanced to the medal round and will face Canada or Sweden, who play Wednesday to determine the Group A winner.

UPDATE (2-17-10):

The Lamoureux Twins are going to be on the Ellen Degeneres show today with the rest of the US Womens Olympic Hockey Team.  ESPN featured Jocelyn and Monique in an online article titled “Lamoureux twins lead Team USA“.  From the article:

“The first goal in Team USA’s lopsided 13-0 victory over Team Russia on Tuesday afternoon was scored by Monique Lamoureux, with an assist by her identical twin sister, Jocelyne. Vancouver is no stranger to high-scoring twins, but Canucks forwards Daniel and Henrik Sedin, currently starring for Team Sweden, are no longer the only show in town.”

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