Pomfret grad pg 9 3-11-10
- Details
- Category: Past Issues
POMFRET --- Sarah Vaillancourt, a graduate of Pomfret School, was one of the members of the Olympic gold medal winning Canadian women's hockey team.
She attend Pomfret for two years, graduating in 2004. Her hometown is Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. After Pomfret, she went to Harvard University for one year and then took a year off to play for the Canadian Olympic team, where she won a gold medal in Torino in 2006. She went back to Harvard after the games and graduated in 2009.
Since then she has been playing with the Canadian Olympic team again, where she won her second gold medal. For those two years at Pomfret, she was also playing for the Canadian National Hockey Team; she had not been selected for the Olympic Team at that point in time. She would have to miss some Pomfret games over the course of the winter to play for the National Team.
When she graduated from Harvard in June she zoomed in from Calgary to train for the Winter Olympics with the Canadian Olympic team—her second time around. In the graduation program, Vaillancourt was recognized as a three-time finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the nation’s top female, collegiate hockey player, winning the award as a junior in 2008. She won a gold medal at the Torino Olympics in 2006 and has been a member of Canada’s elite team since 2003. At Harvard she scored 106 career goals with 237 total points while twice being named the Ivy League and ECAC Player of the Year. At the graduation dinner, Sarah received the Radcliffe Award. This award was first established in 1975. It is awarded annually to that senior woman letter winner who, “through outstanding ability on the playing field and dedication to her sport or sports and qualities of leadership, best reflects the purposeful achievement of Radcliffe Alumnae in every field around the world.”
A three-sport captain in soccer, hockey and softball while at Pomfret School, Vaillancourt took Pomfret to the New England Semi-finals twice in hockey, going 22-2 in her final year (2004).