“Every morning I wake up and can’t wait to go to work. ”
She spent 16 years with the national team. Won four Olympic gold medals and six World Championships. Four times won the Clarkson Cup with the Stars and the Montreal Canadians. Marked the world of hockey.
Caroline Ouellette has lived the dream on the ice for many years. Today, three years after her retirement, she is experiencing it in her “dream job”.
At 42, the Montrealer occupies the position of associate head coach with the Stingers at Concordia University. The top scorer in the history of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (LCHF) – dissolved in 2019 – has acquired over the years and her successes a precious experience that she now enjoys sharing on a daily basis.
“Being able to work with practically the best level after the Canadian team, knowing that we don’t have a professional league at the moment, it’s really a great privilege,” she recalls. […] For me, it’s really more of a passion that I have the chance to teach, to pass on. ”
With the Stingers, Ouellette is the partner of Julie Chu, his wife. They are mothers of two toddler girls, Liv and Tessa. This means that they spend most of their time together.
PHOTO BRIANNA THICKE, PROVIDED BY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
Julie chu
So, what’s it like to work with Julie in addition to sharing her daily life at home? he was asked on November 3, on the occasion of the 30e Induction gala for the Hall of Fame of the Panthéon des sports du Québec, during which she was one of the five immortalized athletes.
She laughs before answering, “It’s no different playing together. We get along really well. We quarrel on occasion. But it is to respect that we are going to have different opinions. In the end, we forget and we move forward for the good of the team. ”
The mission of a lifetime
In September, the Tampa Bay Lightning invited Chu to attend training camp as a coach. The native of Bridgeport, USA, has been involved in the team matches. She was able to observe and bring her own experience.
“It’s really a great honor for her,” says Ouellette on this subject. Julien BriseWood [le directeur général du Lightning] is also an alumnus of Concordia University. He has been supporting our hockey team with scholarships for our student-athletes for several years. For giving Julie this opportunity… She couldn’t wait to learn from the best coaches, from an organization that has been so successful.
“She learned a lot, she felt listened to, respected, challenged,” she continues. It was a great professional experience. ”
Will Ouellette one day receive a similar proposal from the Montreal Canadiens?
We never know. Of course, the Montreal Canadiens are the team of my childhood. It is the team that I am still passionate about.
Caroline Ouellette
But, in reality, the project she cares about is quite different.
“What I would love most is to have a professional women’s team called the Montreal Canadians, and to be able to work with the best female athletes in my sport because there are so many people who have given me so much, given so much. I would like to do the same for the next generation. ”
It’s a bit of a “mission of a lifetime,” she says.
“We know that there are so many men who can aspire to it, dream about it, in so many different leagues, while we don’t have one that is viable,” she laments.
This year, Ouellette is relaunching the Women’s Hockey Celebration, an event for young female hockey players aged 5 to 12. On the menu: a tournament and photo and autograph sessions with Olympians such as Marie-Philip Poulin, Kim St-Pierre and Mélodie Daoust. The event will take place from December 16 to 19.
“There are a lot of young girls in Quebec who haven’t played hockey for more than a year, so to be able to link them to sport, to allow them to dream, it’s very important,” she argues.