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Charline Labonté’s unconventional path to greatness

As Charline Labonté watched the seconds tick down from her crease at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa during the Clarkson Cup Final, she was already contemplating her future.

“Things went way above anything I could have imagined,” she said. “It was an easy decision. As soon as the buzzer sounded and we celebrated I was like ‘alright this was it.’”

Labonté, who announced her retirement on Monday, said that she started thinking about retirement before the Sochi Olympics. She knew those would be her final Olympics, and about a year ago started thinking about retiring for good.