Stu Cowan: TSN's Cheryl Pounder impressed by Canadiens' team effort

Two-time Olympic gold medallist forms a dynamic duo with former Team Canada teammate Tessa Bonhomme during intermission segments on TV.

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The Canadiens’ 3-2 shootout loss to the Golden Knights Monday night in Las Vegas was an entertaining game to watch on TV.

The intermission segments on TSN2 with Cheryl Pounder and Tessa Bonhomme were also entertaining as well as being very informative. The fact it was two women working together in the studio for an NHL game made it really cool.

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Pounder, 47, and Bonhomme, 38, were teammates with Team Canada when they won gold at the 2007 IIHF World Championship. It was the sixth and final gold medal for Pounder at the world championship and she also won Olympic gold medals with Team Canada in 2002 at Salt Lake City and 2006 in Turin. Bonhomme won a second world championship in 2012 with Team Canada and an Olympic gold medal in 2010 at Vancouver.

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“I was kind of on my way out and she was on her way in,” Pounder said during a phone conversation Wednesday about having Bonhomme as a teammate. “So I got her at the beginning and she got me at the end.”

Now they’re back together on TV and they form a dynamic duo.

Pounder and Bonhomme have fantastic chemistry together and are both very comfortable in front of the camera. They come across like two friends sitting and talking hockey to a bunch of friends watching at home. During Monday’s intermission segments, they shared photos of their kids dressed for Halloween as well as photos of themselves from their childhood going trick-or-treating and a photo of the girls’ team Pounder now coaches in Mississauga, Ont. They made the segments fun, while also showing their vast knowledge of the game — especially when Pounder, a former defenceman, broke down solid parts of Canadiens defenceman Justin Barron’s performance.

“I think when the red light goes on, the more you do it the more it becomes a little more natural when you just kind of forget it’s there and remind yourself to just be yourself,” Pounder said. “It’s not rocket science … we’re talking hockey. We love it, we’re passionate about it and just be yourself. … It’s almost not like work when you’re just up there talking hockey.”

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Pounder has some strong Montreal connections. Her mother, Diane, grew up in N.D.G. and Snowdon. Pounder was born in Montreal and lived in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, learning to skate on a backyard rink at age 2. Shortly after that the family moved to New Jersey when her father, Lloyd, had his job transferred out of Montreal. At age 4, the family moved to Mississauga, which remains home to Pounder with her husband, Mike O’Toole, and their two daughters — Jaimie, 15, and Lauren, 13.

O’Toole played hockey for Michigan State University and was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 1986 NHL Draft, but he suffered a serious knee injury and never played in the league. Pounder, who started playing hockey at age 8 in the Mississauga Girls Hockey League, has coached both of her daughters and still coaches Jaimie’s team.

“We often say we got to get away from (hockey),” Pounder said with a chuckle. “I sit at my kitchen table and I’m watching game film while the kids are at school and then they come home and we head out to practice. We’re certainly a hockey family.”

Pounder might be the world’s coolest hockey mom since she is also the new colour commentator for the EA Sports NHL 24 video game, replacing Ray Ferraro, who decided to step away from that job after eight years. Ferraro has been a mentor for Pounder, encouraging her to get more involved in TV work.

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Pounder’s hockey roots run deep. Her maternal grandfather, Phil Wimmer, was general manager of the Junior Canadiens when they won back-to-back Memorial Cup championships in 1969 and 1970 with teams that included future NHLers Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin, Marc Tardif and Réjean Houle.

Pounder liked what she saw from the Canadiens during Monday’s game in Las Vegas.

“There seems to be a connected belief and that’s pretty powerful,” she said. “Because Xs and Os and what you got on paper isn’t always what you have on the ice. Just watching the energy with which they play, the way they closed. They didn’t sit back against the reigning (Stanley Cup) champions. They were in attack mode. That’s a confident group saying we’re going to take you on and we’re not going to sit back and let you take it to us. We’re going to attack. For me, that’s when you play to win instead of play to survive. I feel like they played to win.”

As a young girl, Pounder never dreamed she’d be covering the NHL and the Canadiens on TV — never mind two women working together on intermission segments.

“I don’t think I ever envisioned it because I’d never seen it,” she said. “Whereas today I’m getting young women broadcasters reaching out to me — which I kind of find surreal — because that’s what they want to do because they see it on a more regular basis so they think it’s attainable.”

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