Jacques Lamoureux is no stranger to individual honors. A quick look at his hockey resume at Air Force speaks to that:

• He was a first-team All-American pick in 2009 and a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award after scoring 33 goals during his first season at the Academy.
• He was the first AFA player to win the Senior CLASS Award for excellence in the classroom, on the ice and in the community.
• And he was the Air Force male most valuable player in 2009 and 2011.

In early May Lamoureux added another – Air Force Athletics Hall of Famer. He’s one of five inductees this year, and only the hockey program’s third ever (Chuck Delich, 2011, and Eric Ehn, 2019, are the others)

Lamoureux likes to take a broader perspective on the honors.

“The Hall of Fame is nice an individual honor, but it’s truly a testament to the teams I played on and the teammates I had,” he said. “I might be the one getting recognized, but in my mind this is a team honor. When I think back to all of the guys I played with, I’m not half the player I am without those guys. I feel very fortunate and grateful I’m receiving this, but a lot of it is my teammates and the coaches we had. It’s very humbling.”

History backs him up. Lamoureux’s first season in the Falcons’ lineup was full of heights for the program.

They won a program-record 28 games, won the Atlantic Hockey championship (Lamoureux had the winning goal), and then knocked off No. 3 Michigan for Air Force’s first NCAA Tournament victory (he also netted the GWG in that game).

Lamoureux, who served as a volunteer assistant for the Falcons the past few seasons while back on campus teaching, graciously took time recently to reflect on a host of hockey topics with Flight Path founder Chris Bayee.

How did you find out about the Hall of Fame honor?

I’m getting deployed this summer for a year, and I was heading out to Washington, D.C., for an orientation session. I turned on my phone after landing and I had a voicemail from Nate Pine (Air Force’s Director of Athletics). I had some others mention HOF stuff to me so I thought that’s what it might be about, because why would Nate Pine be calling me out of nowhere? I called him back while I was waiting for my bags and he told me I’d been selected for the Hall of Fame.

The Air Force hockey program really took off during the era you played. What were some of your favorite memories of playing for the Falcons?

Winning the (Atlantic Hockey) championship my senior year was probably at the top of that list. A group of us were graduating. It was a nice way to walk out, the same way we did my first year, winning it. That feels pretty good. We left the program at least in at least as good of shape as when we found it, and hopefully a little better. Beating Michigan ranks right up there, getting our first NCAA Tournament win, especially when nobody gave us a fighting chance. Beating Army in the playoffs my junior year when we were pretty depleted. … Just the camaraderie you develop with your teammates, especially being at a service academy and what we all have to go through to graduate from the institution. I don’t miss getting banged into the boards or body checked, but I do miss seeing my buddies all the time.

You’ve been back at the Academy teaching for a few years, and then joined the hockey staff as a volunteer assistant. What was the driver for that  later decision?

I’ve been teaching in the management department. It’s been great to be back at the Academy. I reached out to (head coach) Frank (Serratore) when I found out I was going to be back and asked, “Would you be interested in having me as a volunteer coach?” He said, “Absolutely.”

I couldn’t always be there (for practice) so I wasn’t part of the day-to-day coaching decisions, but I’ve been able to work on an individual level with players on specific things, conditioning, shooting. Face-offs were a big thing. Goal-scoring philosophy as opposed to systems and structures. When the puck’s in this area you’ve got to find the soft area, things like that. The appeal was staying in the game. Hockey’s been a family business. I like to be involved. It gives me something to talk to my siblings about because they’re all involved one way or another. My older brother (Jean-Philippe) is still playing professionally (in Austria). For a guy who was never big enough, he’s probably one of the few 1984 birthdays on the planet still playing. (Coaching) was an opportunity to give back to a place that has given me so much. It was my duty to help out.

Another part is to be there for the current players. Not that I have great advice, but just helping them through the Academy and into their first years on active duty. I have very relevant recent experience to share with them. That’s been the most rewarding thing.

You mentioned the family business. You had quite an upbringing in the game. I can only imagine what the family shinny games must have been like, and maybe still are like!

In Grand Forks, N.D., there’s not a lot else to do. Hockey is the sport there, the same way football is the sport in Texas. Our dad Pierre played in college (he was a goaltender at North Dakota), and we all got into it. We all played every sport. Hockey was what all our friends did. I liked football a lot. It was fun to play, but I knew it was not going to be my calling.

Hockey was the sport we chose. We had a dad who played at the levels we wanted to get to, and the only thing he wanted from us was hard work. You’re going to put in your effort. I don’t care what you do, you’re putting forth effort. He pushed us. He was hard on us, but I couldn’t be more thankful for the example he set.

And then my brother J.P., he was two years older than us. The levels of play he wanted to get to, there couldn’t have been a better example for the other five of us to see his diligence. He works to perfect his craft as a goalie. For a guy who is 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds who is entering his 16^th year of pro hockey. He’s going to be 38 this summer, and he’s playing at the top of his game. They just won the (Austrian) league championship. It was his second championship. It’s remarkable. It started when he was a young teen-ager, and it hasn’t changed. He’s one of those guys who loves the game, loves the process and loves putting in the work. That was the example we had to follow.

That came from our dad, but the toughest person in our family is my mom Linda. She was a swimmer, and she is tough. You would never think she has that in her. She has a bubbly personality. After having six kids she ran the Boston Marathon a number of times, and ran competitive times. That drive, a lot of that comes from her.

We had the right environment in terms of having outdoor ice. We would play on the pond near our house all hours of the day. We had parents who gave us opportunities to play sports, and they pushed us. When I was playing in high school, my brother Mario and I got home from a game about two hours away around midnight. Neither of us felt like going to bed, so we grabbed our gear and walked over to the pond. The moon was bright enough you could see, so he and I played for two more hours until he hit me in the nose with his stick and cut me open.

If you sat at our table at the Christmas dinner you might wonder, ‘What’s wrong with these people?’

(Mario, who is two years younger than Jacques continues to play pro hockey in Germany. The fourth brother, Pierre-Paul, is the head coach of the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League).

As much as you and your brothers have accomplished and continue to, your twin sisters Monique and Jocelyne have brought a tremendous amount of attention to the women’s game. They, too, have accomplished a lot. What stands out to you about them?

I think they were easily the best athletes in the family. They would have been superior athletes at whatever sport they played. But they chose hockey because that’s what their four older brothers did.

And they got no special treatment?

We would never take it easy on them. We would push them around and get mad at them if they couldn’t make plays. Being a girl was no excuse. We wanted to win whatever game we were playing, and if they were the reason it cost us winning we would give them an earful.

It forced them to play a certain way that I don’t think anyone in the women’s game played like. I’ve heard podcasts where women’s players talk about the tone of the U.S. women’s team changed when the Lamoureux twins stopped played. They brought an element of toughness that made everyone stand a few inches taller.

Your family pretty much covered all of the positions on the ice.

The twins were a combination of all of the skill sets that each of us had individually. I was a pretty skilled player. My brother Pierre-Paul was a tough defenseman, Mario was more of a defensive forward. You can see all of those things in my sisters.

I remember seeing them play a game growing up and Jocelyn was playing goalie, and they were winning 5-0. So in the third period, they let the other goalie play. She put on her player gear and scored a goal. You don’t see that very often.

Their impact certainly has extended beyond the ice, hasn’t it?

What they have done for the women’s game is incredible. (In 2017), the World Championships were up in Plymouth (Mich.), and I was living in Dayton, Ohio, so my wife and I had plans to go up and watch the games. (That was the year the team voted to boycott the event over an equal pay dispute with USA Hockey, which was settled). … They were protesting their pay. The deal gets done, and they were going to play. We go in the rink and you see all these little girls with signs. That choked me up to see the role models that not only my sisters but all the women are, the example they set.

They’ve made the most of it. They have two silver medals and one gold medal, that’s awesome. But I have a little daughter, and she’s got me wrapped around her finger. I’ve told this to my sisters, and I probably don’t tell them this enough. What I’m excited about is my daughter is going to have two people like that to look up to, and the example that they set, that’s what I’m most proud of – how awesome of people they are. They make time for everybody, and for all of the people that helped them get where they are, they do a wonderful job giving back. Whether it’s the community or others who gave them ice time, they will always give back. They’re just awesome people.

The Air Force Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony is scheduled for late September. Lamoureux’s class includes legendary track and field coach Ralph Lindeman, who passed away in March, swimming All-American Chad Knute, football All-American Beau Morgan and multiple All-American honoree in track and field Sara Neubauer.

©First Line Editorial 2022