It's all about balance for Gauthier

You think people appreciate seeing Abby Gauthier play hockey as much as they should?

Frank Pagliuca, the girls' hockey coach at St. Mary's Junior-Senior High School of Lynn, says he can see Gauthier grow as a player, and as a person, every day.

"She's really developing into a complete player," he said of the junior center, after seeing her, game in and game out, not only for the Crusaders but also as coach of Gauthier's recreation league team.

Pagliuca can see how much Gauthier has committed to this season, not just as one of the most talented players on a team that went to the Division 1 state semifinals last season, but as one of four cocaptains on this year's team, which is looking to go back and win it all.

The Lynn resident has led St. Mary's team in scoring each year since she was a seventh-grader. Last season she scored her 100th career goal, and with two varsity seasons still to go has already racked up 200 career points.

Pagliuca can look at Gauthier and analyze her game like artwork:

"She plays with a high energy."

"She really has an eye for the net."

"She really anticipates the play excellently in terms of her offensive play."

"She has excellent hands to handle the puck and distribute the puck, and her shot has improved tremendously."

"She has a great release."

"She really puts herself in good position with her body in front of the net to get rebounds."

But after saying all that, there will be moments like the one recently when St. Mary's played one of its biggest rivals, Austin Prep, and all of Pagliuca's words played out in front of him.

During the Austin Prep game, when the score was tied at 3 with time winding down, Gauthier put herself into the perfect position to tip in a teammate's miss and score the game-winning, power-play goal with just 9 seconds left on the clock.

Those moments play out like a lot of other moments, and Pagliuca can see all of them. Abby's mother, Marianne, has seen them every day since her husband, Brian, built a 20- by 40-foot rink in the backyard when Abby was just 3 years old.

Abby's brother Brian, a year her junior, was right beside her the whole time, so he had the closest view, and up until her sophomore year in high school, the view for Abby's older sister, Emily, was just as good.

Then, every so often, it would become harder for her to see, and Abby gathered the same skills she used on the ice to help her sister navigate a difficult road.

You couldn't tell by looking at Emily, but Stargardt's disease, a rare form of macular degeneration, was stealing her daytime vision. So everything she was looking forward to as a high schooler -- including getting a driver's license -- was fading away.

Within a year, Emily, now 22, was considered legally blind. During the day, she could look straight ahead and all she would see was a black spot, but at night her vision would be 20/20. "It's the sunlight," Marianne said. "Light makes the vision blur."

When Abby earned her driver's license and got her car, she would take Emily wherever she needed to go, whether it was for studying or a shopping trip.

"We'll go to Boston and she'll buy us stuff," Abby said. "She goes shopping. That's her sport. She doesn't really like the hockey rink, but she reads about" the games. "She saves all the newspaper stories about me. She keeps it up in her room."

"It hit home pretty hard," said Brian Sr. "It was really tough on all of us. But you know what -- life goes on."

The doctors at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary encouraged the Gauthier family.

"The doctor, he was 68 at the time, he said that in his lifetime they probably won't find a cure for it," Brian said. "But in Emily's lifetime they probably will, because she had youth on her side. So they're confident that by the time she's in her 30s or 40s, they'd have something for her."

So as bright as Abby may be on the ice, her sister can't see her shine. But Abby will always have her support.

"Whenever there's any kind of a state tournament or anything, she'll be there," Marianne said. "She's not a hockey girl. She's more of a shopping on Newbury Street girl. There's no hockey in Emily's plans but when there's a state tournament game, she's at every one of them."