She uses a large piece of plastic on the ground to protect her stick from scratching over the pavement, and in the net she’s macgyvered another piece of plastic to replicate the space a goalie would claim.

This is her zone – a grounding space which, over her 12-year hockey career, she’s always relied on to clear her head and practice her technique.

At the end of August, the 17-year-old Pontiac High School graduate said goodbye to that driveway, as she hit the road for Montreal, where Dubeau is joining the Dawson College Blues women’s hockey team.

“I’m excited, obviously, but it’s nerve-wracking at the same time,” she told THE EQUITY before leaving.

“For one, not having your parents there to help you with things. You’re on your own [ . . . ] It’s up to me now. It’s a big city, and I’m from Shawville.”

Dubeau was first approached by a coach for the Dawson team about a year ago, during her second season with the Gatineau Intrépide AAA team. The coach reached out again this past season to offer her a spot on his team.

Since the age of five, Dubeau’s dedicated herself to the game of hockey. Growing up, she was one of the only girls who played on the Pontiac Lions boys’ hockey teams. When she was about 10 years old, she tried out for the Lions’ A team, but didn’t make it. She was devastated.

“I was so mad. I went home crying, thinking this is the end and I wasn’t going to be able to do anything,” Dubeau said, noting that at the time, she felt she hadn’t made the team because she was a girl.

Dedicated to the sport, she played for the C team that year, and found it to be far too easy.

“Every game it was four goals. It was almost boring and I needed more competition,” Dubeau said. The following year, she made the A team, and stuck with it for the rest of her Lions career.

After a few years with the Lions A team, Dubeau was ready, yet again, for a more serious challenge – she wanted to play AAA – but this one would take an equally serious commitment from her parents.

“I don’t come from a family with one kid. I have four other siblings. It was going to take a lot to be able to drive to Gatineau everyday and play at the AAA level,” Dubeau said. “So I asked my mom and we both committed to it.”

Dubeau said playing for a girls’ team after years of playing with boys was a breath of fresh air.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, the guys were good, but I feel like the girls had more of a technique to playing. Their hockey IQ was a little bit higher,” Dubeau said.

“I know when I played in Shawville it was more just ‘Oh I got the puck, let me go score now.’ And then when I switched to the girls it was more knowing what to do on the ice, and where to be on the ice, to make a good play.”

Dubeau admitted this difference in play styles may very well be attributable to joining a more competitive league, but she said regardless, the new style of play was exactly the push she needed to advance her own skill level.

“Once you have something set in your mind that you love, there’s nothing else you’re going to think of,” Dubeau said. “You just want to complete your dreams and get what you want.”

All the many hours Dubeau spent drilling the puck at the net in her driveway paid off when she joined the Gatineau team.

“When she joined us in bantam she had some great hands and she was shooting really good, hard on the puck, on the top shelf,” said Benoit de Beaumont, who coached Dubeau for two of the three years she played for the Intrépide.

“For this, we gave her the nickname of Top Cheese. Top Cheese Dubeau,” he said, emphasizing her ability to “outplay somebody in a telephone booth.”

He said Dubeau’s “super skills,” dedication, and quiet leadership made her a great player to have on the team, and was not surprised she got scouted by Dawson, one of the more competitive colleges to get into, noting it wasn’t only her hockey skills that got her a spot at the school.

“They’ll make a place for you but you need to have the grades too. If she’s there it’s because she’s successful at school,” de Beaumont said.

“As dedicated as Paige was with us, I have no doubt she can go play at the university league.”

Dubeau absolutely has her mind set on continuing to play with a university team once she completes her college program, and she’s already connected with the University of Wisconsin, where she participated in a training camp last month.

Outside of hockey, Dubeau wants to be a physiotherapist. She plans to enroll in the pre-health program at Dawson and then study kinesiology in university to make this happen.

While this vision for her future beyond hockey grounds her, there’s still a lot she wants to achieve on the ice.

When the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) launched last year, the possibilities for where Dubeau takes her hockey career expanded even beyond the university level.

“I’ve always watched the NHL and they’ve always had the chance to go pro and to be paid to play hockey and do what they love, but the girls never really had the same chance as the guys did,” Dubeau said.

“It’s nice they gave us more of a chance and something to really strive towards.”

Dubeau started playing hockey with the Pontiac Lions when she was five years old,and in her twelve years with the sport, has collected a box full of tournament medals, photos, newspaper clippings and cards from friends wishing her speedy recoveries from her various injuries. Photo: Sophie Kuijper Dickson

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