Lamoureux twins talk fight for gender equality in sports and the next Olympic generation

Women’s ice hockey players Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando, coming off their gold-medal win in the 2018 Winter Olympics, are working hard to make sure other women have the same opportunity in hockey.

It was the culmination of a year of hard work both on and off the ice.

As Team USA defeated Canada in the women’s ice hockey gold medal game in the 2018 Winter Olympics, the Lamoureux Twins — Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando — played an instrumental role.

Monique scored the tying goal and Jocelyne followed it up with the game-winner in the shootout to bring home the gold in a trying — and triumphant — year for the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Monique and Jocelyne sat down with FanSided to talk about their efforts in the year leading up to the Olympics for equitable treatment in women’s hockey and the work they’re continuing to do, now supported by Comcast, to ensure female athletes have the support and resources they need to pursue hockey.

Their interview in its entirety is below:

First, we had to talk about that game — and the twins’ unique role in securing the win for Team USA.

“When you go into any big-game situation you want to think that you’re going to have a huge contributing role,” Monique tells FanSided.

“Sometimes that’s not always the case; we’ve been in two Olympic gold medal games before and haven’t scored any goals or contributed on the scoresheet, so to be able to have the impact that we did with me scoring the tying goal and Jocelyne the winning goal in the shootout, it makes it that much more special for us. To be able to celebrate that win with our team, with everything we had been through over the past year, was just the icing on the cake for us.”

“To be able to celebrate that win with our team, with everything we had been through over the past year, was just the icing on the cake for us.” -Monique Lamoureux-Morando

Indeed, it had been a long year of fighting for Monique, Jocelyne and the rest of the U.S. Women’s team, dating back to their decision to boycott the International Ice Hockey Federation world championship in March 2017 as part of their fight for support equitable to the men’s team.

The women were ranked No.1 in the world, having earned three world championships. Yet they could hardly support themselves. Some people may not realize the boycott was not necessarily for equal pay. I asked the twins to outline exactly what they fought for — and, thanks to their tenacity, what they ended up winning.

“It was equal treatment or equitable support, and there were really three main things that we were focusing on,” explains Jocelyne.

The first point of focus was fair compensation.

“We train full-time, we live our lives to put on the USA jersey and that’s our full-time job, but more than half of us have full-time jobs outside of hockey to support ourselves,” Jocelyne says. “So we felt like if financially we could have fair compensation it would really support the national team to provide more training so we can focus on being the best we can be.

The women’s second point of emphasis was more equitable support for girls’ programs — i.e., whatever financial support is being provided to the boys’ U17 and U18 teams should be equivalent to the girls’ U17 and U18 teams.

“There were pretty big discrepancies in how the dollars were being divided,” Jocelyne explains.

And the third point was more visibility and marketing support for the women’s national team, to ultimately help grow the game.

According to Jocelyne, “It creates more awareness for young girls that women play hockey, play at a high level. We felt like there has been a lack of that outside of an Olympic year.”

The women were able to secure the following thanks to their boycott and subsequent negotiations: travel and insurance provisions equal to those enjoyed by the men’s national team; a pool of prize money; a monthly $2,000 stipend from the United States Olympic Committee for training and a better performance bonus structure.

Their fight also kicked off a movement in women’s sports; in April 2017, the U.S. women’s soccer team also boycotted after winning the World Cup and was able to earn a new five-year agreement including fairer pay and bonus structures.

It’s a more than smart investment. The gold medal game against Canada was the most watched late-night program in NBCSN history with 3.7 million viewers, which is huge. Especially in a year in which NHL players did not participate in the Olympics, these numbers seem to reinforce that the public wants more women’s hockey.

“You see on the Olympic level people want to watch women’s hockey, so how do we make ourselves more visible on a year-round basis?” posits Monique. “Where to start from there is having one professional league. You have the NWHL [National Women’s Hockey League] and the CWHL [Canadian Women’s Hockey League] right now, and I think a lot of people would like to see the two leagues merge and create one league, where now you have the best American and Canadian hockey players playing with and against each other.”

The twins agree that the next step in growing women’s hockey is having one league under the NHL umbrella that the NHL can throw its weight behind in support and partnership.

In terms of barriers to play the twins may have experienced themselves growing up, living in Minnesota with four older brothers, they didn’t have a girls’ team to play on. So they played with boys up until they went to high school. The twins emphasize that there’s definitely a lack of opportunity for girls’ teams — and that’s the case for a lot of their teammates on the national team.

That’s why the support for girls’ teams part of their negotiation was so important.

Unfortunately, however, there’s not just a lack of opportunity at the U17 and U18 levels.

Even though Title IX is supposed to provide equal opportunity for women athletes in sports in educational institutions that receive federal funds, it comes up short frequently. Take, for instance, the Lamoureux twins’ alma mater, the University of North Dakota.

Earlier this month, 11 women filed a class action discrimination lawsuit against the North Dakota University System in U.S. District Court to reinstate the women’s hockey program that was cut 15 months ago.

This is a program that has produced multiple Olympians, in addition to the Lamoureux twins — the most out of any college program in the country, in fact. The twins’ fight at the national level has inspired women at the college athletics level, as well.

Jocelyne, who served as the team’s strength and conditioning coach, spoke about how proud she was.

“They’re not asking for anything else but for the team to be reinstated,” she says. “Monique and I understand that numbers have to make sense, and there’s a business behind it, but there can be solutions and ways to move money around to make women’s hockey make sense. What they’re doing is honorable and our fight for equitable support really mirrors what they’re fighting for.”

The twins have gotten some extra muscle in their fight for equality thanks to a new multi-year partnership with Comcast to serve as ambassadors and spokespeople for the company’s corporate values initiatives.

Jocelyne and Monique will be spearheading efforts directed at volunteerism and community service programs like Comcast Cares Day; improved internet access and digital literacy training for low-income Americans; education and mentorship for young people; and a commitment to diversity and inclusion, including gender equity.

“The value of finding extraordinary young women like Jocelyne and Monique to partner with is really twofold,” David tells FanSided.

“They share almost all of these objectives…helping young people, mentoring young people, giving back to low-income young people who may not have had the benefits and advantages that they had. It rapidly became apparently that their own personal agenda mirrors the values we’re trying to pursue through our company’s social responsibility program.”

“We’re not trying to sell products here,” David says. “We’re trying to sell a commitment to community. Having two passionate, authentic, impressive young women like Jocelyn and Monique working side-by-side with us on that agenda is incredibly appealing to the company.”

David was proud to share that Comcast/NBCUniversal was recently named to “The Civic 50,” which recognizes the most community-minded companies in the nation, by Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service.

The company also ranked No. 1 on Fortune’s list of Best Workplaces for Diversity.

Given the power of their platform, I asked Jocelyne and Monique to conclude by talking a little more about the work they’ve been doing with development camps and clinics to support young girls who dream of growing up to play ice hockey, possibly at an Olympic level.

“We never had an all-girls camp to go to when we were younger, so that’s something we’re really passionate about doing.”-Monique Lamoureux-Morando

The twins’ first event in partnership with Comcast was participating in the Comcast Cares day in Philadelphia, where they put on a hockey clinic with more than 100 hockey players followed by a study hall hour, where they gave away laptops and six months of free Internet access.

“It was the most impactful event that we’ve ever been part of, because it goes beyond hockey,” says Monique. “For these kids to have Internet access and access to a laptop that they don’t have to share truly changes the trajectory of how they can perform at school. That was really special for us and we can’t wait to do more.”

The twins also recently hosted a hockey camp in western North Dakota, attended by more than 185 girls from all over the country. Jocelyne and Monique run a business with their brother, Mario —  Lamoureux Hockey LLC — to provide resources and coaching to young hockey players in the region.

“We never had an all-girls camp to go to when we were younger, so that’s something we’re really passionate about doing,” says Monique.

As Comcast ambassadors and as hockey players, Monique and Jocelyne are working tirelessly to promote women’s hockey nationally and abroad. Because of their efforts, you should be hearing a lot more about them and their teammates from the U.S. women’s national team year-round, every year — not just in years when Olympic medals are up for grabs.