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Catherine Ward

Women's Hockey Earl Zukerman

HALL OF FAME PROFILE: Catherine Ward


MONTREAL – Each Wednesday for a six-week period beginning in June, we are profiling one of our 2019 inductees to the McGill Sports Hall of Fame. This week, meet two-time Olympic gold medalist Catherine Ward from Town of Mt. Royal, Que.

Born on Feb. 27, 1987, Ward enters the Hall at age 32, becoming the University's youngest laureate, surpassing soccer great Julia Maughan, who was 34 when inducted in 2006.

Ward, a 5-foot-6 defenceman, played high school hockey for College Notre Dame and then Dawson College, where at the age of 20, she had a hockey scholarship named after her in 2007. She  turned down scholarship offers from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth and Minnesota to attend McGill University, where she graduated in only three years with a commerce degree in 2009.

Patrolling the McGill Martlets blueline, she merited all-conference and All-Canadian status in each of her three seasons. Voted QSSF and CIS national rookie of the year in 2006-07, she helped McGill win three straight league titles, one silver medal at the national championship in 2007, followed by back-to-back gold medals in 2008 and 2009. At the Nationals, she earned CIS all-tournament honours in each of her first two appearances and merited tourney MVP status in her final one.

Ward registered school records for most career goals, assists and points by a blueliner, posting a 34-104-138 record in 110 games overall, with 52 penalty minutes. She notched seven career power-play goals, five shorthanded tallies, six game-winners and one hat-trick.

In regular season play, Ward posted a career total of 15-50-65 in 46 contests with just 20 PIMs. She also established numerous single-season McGill and Quebec league records, including most goals (7), assists (21) and points (24) by a defenceman, and won the league's scoring crown in 2007-08 with 19 points in 15 games.

After graduating with a BCom from McGill, Ward transferred to Boston University where she completed an MBA and played one season with the BU Terriers, where she posted a 4-27-31 record in 36 games and set a school record for assists. She earned Hockey East first team all-star status and was named as the most outstanding defenceman in the conference. Ward earned AHCA second-team All-American honours in 2010-11 and was the conference nominee for the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Award, which goes to the NCAA's top hockey player.

She also had a superb international career with the Canadian national program, beginning with the U-22 squad in 2006 and concluding with the national senior team, which she retired from in 2014 to accept a position with CCM as a product manager.

Ward helped Canada win one gold medal (2012) and three silvers at the IIHF world championships, along with a pair of Olympic gold medals at the 2010 Vancouver Games and the 2014 Sochi Games, where she served as an alternate captain.

She went onto a stellar career in the NWHL (later renamed the CWHL), where she was drafted seventh overall by the Montreal Stars. Ward led Montreal to a pair of Clarkson Cup national titles in 2011 and 2012. She joined teammate Marie-Philip Poulin as the sixth and seventh members of the "Triple Gold Club", for winning gold at the CIS, NWHL and IIHF levels.

Other new laureates in the 2019 McGill induction class include Olympic marathoner Dr. Lizanne Bussières, a Whistler, B.C. resident originally from Ste. Foy, Que., soccer striker Graham Butcher, a native of Pte. aux Trembles, Que., who was raised on Montreal's south shore in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Que., hockey goaltender Mathieu Poitras of Gatineau, Que., basketball guard Domenico Marcario of St. Leonard, Que., and badminton player Mathieu Laforest from Laval-des-Rapides, Que.
 
The hallowed Hall now has 151 honoured members, 27 of them Olympians, since the pantheon was initiated in 1996.
 
The 24th annual induction luncheon will kick-off the University's 2019 Homecoming Week celebrations on Wednesday, Sept. 25. About 200 tickets will be available for the ceremony, scheduled to be held at the Windsor Ballroom on Peel Street. Tickets are $80 and can be reserved online at http://myalumni.mcgill.ca beginning in August or by contacting the McGill Alumni Association at 514-398-8288. All previous inductees to the McGill Sports Hall of Fame are also available online at: www.mcgillathletics.ca/hof.aspx
 
 
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