Lives of U Sports women's hockey players intertwined from Quebec to Italy

As long as they can remember, the hockey lives of Gabrielle Santerre and Emilie Lussier have been intertwined as rivals. 

However, earlier in January, the Quebec natives finally found themselves not only on the same team — but the same line.

After playing against each other for years across different parts of the Quebec junior hockey system, and then again at university with Santerre representing Bishop's and Lussier at Concordia, they finally paired up as part of Team Canada at the World University Games in Torino, Italy.

It was, in some ways, a quintessentially Canadian hockey tournament experience.

Canada entered as massive favourites, won a couple blowouts and reached the gold-medal game. Despite outshooting their opposition 52-15, they lost the final 2-1 in overtime to the Czech Republic. 

And so Santerre and Lussier will once again go their separate ways, taking different lessons from Italy to apply to their teams during the stretch run of the U Sports season.

First, though — almost as soon as they stepped foot back home — they had games to play. Naturally, against each other. Concordia won both by a combined 10-2 score.

"It was so fun. And we knew that it was a big competition, and we knew when we're coming back, people are gonna just say, 'Oh, Lussier vs. Santerre' and stuff. But it's so fun to be with her," Lussier said.

"We made such [a] friendship down there and we know we're gonna see each other again."

At their respective schools, Santerre and Lussier play very different roles.

Santerre, the 21-year-old from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., is coming off a freshman campaign last year in which she was named both player and rookie of the year, becoming the first U Sports athlete to pull off such a feat.

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