There were four PWHL Montreal members nominated for awards at the 2024 PWHL Awards, held on Tuesday in Minnesota.
Two of them, Erin Ambrose for defender of the year and Maureen Murphy for the Hockey for All award (for community involvement), took home the hardware while Marie-Philip Poulin did not come away with forward of the year or Most Valuable Player but was named to the PWHL’s first all-star team where she was joined by Ambrose. The other nominee was head coach Kori Cheverie as coach of the year.
While Ambrose’s contributions to Montreal and the reasons for winning the award were plain to see, Murphy’s win came under the radar to the point that media was not aware she was even nominated for the award, nor were they aware of the amount of effort Murphy put into the Montreal community.
Murphy, the 24 year old Buffalo native, was playing her first professional season after playing at Northeastern University. The 2023 third-round pick was signed to a three-year contract prior to the season.
“I think I speak for anyone who does community service or leadership work in their community that it’s nice to be recognized but we don’t do it for the recognition,” she said.
She volunteered more than 200 hours at several Montreal organizations and health centres, where she and her dog Bean helped elderly people cope with and recover from, various physical and mental health conditions through pet therapy. She also volunteers for Miriam Home in Montréal, the Canadian Red Cross, and the North American Elite Girls Hockey program.
“I wanted to get involved in geriatric communities because my grandmother is in a long-term home and whenever I am home with her I bring Bean to visit her, and I hope someone is coming to visit her when I’m not there.”
Murphy said her dog Bean specifically liked the job because of the treats he would get from the people they helped, including one specific person who provided him with ice cream. She said the fact that she didn’t have to be bilingual to work with the English patients helped. She also has a degree in public health so she wanted to do something within the health field to see how it worked in Canada.
“I wanted to learn more about the community since I’m here for three years and hopefully longer,” Murphy said. “With hockey, we had some ups and downs this year and it’s a great reminder to all athletes that you’re people first. I’d love to play hockey forever but that’s not realistic. When hockey’s great it’s great but we all have those days where you don’t have a good game and it’s hard so having something else to do and if it’s a way I can give back and help other people, then it makes me feel content and that I accomplished something instead of relying on putting a little rubber disc in the back of the net sometimes.”
On top of volunteering in the community, Murphy also took two night classes online, pursuing a law degree at Northeastern.
“Murph has been one of my closest friends on the team this year,” said Erin Ambrose, despite the pair not knowing each other prior to being teammates. “I am so happy that she got the recognition. I know that I should be following her to her volunteer times because as much as Maureen will say it was Bean that made the difference, Maureen really does impact people and make people’s lives brighter on a day-to-day basis.”
Ambrose’s season was capped with her second defender of the year award. She also won the final CWHL defender of the year award in the 2018-19 season, her first full season in Montreal with Les Canadiennes.
The 30-year-old defender has talked openly about how her disappointment and setback after being cut from the 2018 Olympic team led her to re-evaluate things and led her to Montreal. The fact that when the PWHL started, she found her way back, was fitting.
“Some things had to happen in my life, some disappointments had to happen in my career,” Ambrose said. “It turned things in the right direction for me. Making an Olympic team, winning some World Championships, getting drafted to Montreal, having this great season, it’s hard to put into words because part of me doesn’t realize what I’ve accomplished in the last five years. If you ask me when I’m 40, I will probably say that this has been the most impactful five years of my life.”
Despite being in the spotlight for many years, this was the first year where she was truly a professional hockey player and that brought some challenges.
“At the beginning of the year, I was struggling to find my footing a little bit just in my consistency,” Ambrose said. “I pride myself immensely on being a consistent player and it was just the ins and outs of day to day practices that I needed to get more consistent in to take my game to the next level. It was continuing to see what I need as an individual athlete because things that I need to do are not the same as my teammates. This was the first time in my career, other than Centralization, that we go home from our group at the rink and come back together the next day,” she said.
After taking home a silver medal at the 2023 World Championship, Ambrose famously had the medal on her door frame to remind herself of the goal to turn it to gold, which Canada did in 2024. There’s no fourth-place trophy in the PWHL to serve as a reminder, but the target for next year is already clear.
“Individual awards are a little bittersweet, the biggest thing I wish I could have is the Walter Cup,” Ambrose said.
“It’s going to be pretty easy to get motivated this summer. There’s a lot I want to accomplish as an individual so that I can best impact the team to bring the Walter Cup to Montreal and that starts with summer training.”
