DLN ALL-AREA: Unionville’s Doucette dominates on the ice, then hangs up her hockey stick

Put Unionville’s Madison Doucette on the list of favorable imports from Kansas City, mixed in somewhere with the blues and barbecue.

Doucette was instrumental as the Indians continued to rule the ICSHL girls hockey division. Her dominance in helping Unionville roll to a Flyers Cup championship and an undefeated season has resulted in Doucette being named the Daily Local News All-Area Girls Hockey Player of the Year for the second straight season.

“It’s quite an honor,” said Doucette. “It’s a great way to end my career. We had tremendous talent that can do so much. This is as much about the team as it is me.”

While she was no means a one-woman band, she was still the unquestioned scoring leader for a team that lost three talented seniors, but still had the most talent in the area, and didn’t stay complacent despite the championships they had racked up in the last few years.

“We are a very good team, but we had to come with it every game because we had a target on our backs,” she said. “We couldn’t get lazy. There’s a lot of good teams out there and we had to play well every game.”

During the regular season, Doucette led the division in goals and points. She teamed with Kaelen Speck to form a high-scoring duo that terrorized league goalies.

“She has been with me all four years,” said Unionville coach Dave Elvin. “When she joined us, in her first practice, you could see she was going to be a huge impact player. It took about 16 seconds.

“She’s committed to the sport and wanted to get better and worked hard. She’s a great athlete. She has the consistent drive that if she chose hockey, she could’ve been a Division I player or even reached the Olympic level.”

Doucette learned to skate during her formative years spent in the Midwest. She and her family moved to the area when she was in eighth grade to an area where hockey loomed more prominently.

Her size and strength made her extremely hard to knock off the puck, while she and Speck — who had more than 90 points between them — developed Wayne Gretzky-to-Jari Kurri-like chemistry.

She scored the tie-breaking goal in a four-goal second period, and finished with two goals and an assist, as Unionville repeated as ICSHL champ with a 5-3 win over OJR-Boyertown. In the Flyers Cup final against West Chester East, Doucette had a six-point night, with three goals and three assists.

She also doubles as a goaltender on the lacrosse team, where she is a teammate of another two-sport star, Veronica Hineman, who was the DLN All-Area Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

“I’m amazed at the schedule the two and three-sport athlete has,” said Elvin. “We’ve had players who also played field hockey or lacrosse. We even had a freshman come out for our team, who also is a volleyball player. It’s always a pleasure to see how they develop.”

Doucette is headed back to her roots as she will play lacrosse for national powerhouse Northwestern. She intends to keep her hand in hockey, so some adult league team around Chicago may be getting one heck of a player.

“I love hockey and would love to keep playing and stay on the ice,” she said. “I want to give back and help younger players get better.”