Lamoureux family in newest issue of S.I.

• Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux

AP Photo United States women’s hockey team players Monique Lamoureux, right, and Jocelyne Lamoureux celebrates Monique’s goal against Canada during the championship game of the Canada Cup on Sept. 6. The Lamoureuxs are members of Team USA in the Winter Olympics are featured alongside their hockey-playing family in the most recent issue of Sports illustrated.

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GRAND FORKS — The Lamoureux family is well known in this area for its hockey exploits.

Wednesday, America’s most popular sports magazine introduced the Lamoureux family to the rest of the country and the world.

Sports Illustrated’s eight-page feature, including a portrait photo of the family on the English Coulee, will hit store shelves today in the issue with the New Orleans Saints on the cover.

Writer Gary Smith, who traveled to Grand Forks in September to conduct interviews with coaches and family members, chronicles the rise of Pierre and Linda’s six children to college hockey’s highest level and beyond.

In the lead of his story, Smith writes, the Lamoureux family is “perhaps the most remarkable sporting clan in the United States.”

All six children are involved in hockey.

The story credits the family’s natural passion for hockey and the time spent on the coulee perfecting skills as the keys to their success.

Goalie Jean-Philippe played at the University of North Dakota and is now with the Buffalo Sabres’ top minor league team, the Portland Pirates. Jacques is a junior at Air Force. Mario is a sophomore at UND. Pierre-Paul, who played in the Western Hockey League and at the University of Manitoba, is now a UND student-assistant coach. And twins Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux will represent Team USA in the Olympics next month. They’ll be sophomores at UND in the fall.

UND women’s hockey coach Brian Idalski had a chance to read the article Tuesday.

“They’re going to continue getting great coverage at the Olympics because they are a great story,” he said. “They are twins, they’ve had a lot of success and it has been a family tradition as far as the siblings pushing each other and their work ethic. How that has been passed down is really special.”

Growing up together, the siblings frequently played hockey on the English Coulee behind their neighbor’s house.

“One freak year, the coulee froze in late September,” the story says, “and a few other times at Halloween. But it almost always congealed by mid-November, a month or more before the local rinks opened, allowing the Lamoureux — who spent 20 hours a weekend and another dozen during the week — to amass thousands more skating hours than their peers.”

This is not the first Sports Illustrated appearance for the Lamoureux family. The twins made it into the “Faces in the Crowd” section last year while they were freshmen at the University of Minnesota.

Schlossman is a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

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