These women who break down doors in the NHL

Hayley Wickenheiser

Photo: The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

Hayley Wickenheiser

Long considered the best hockey player in the world, forward Wickenheiser eventually passed the torch to her ex-teammate Poulin and hung up her skates in 2017. The following year, the Saskatchewan native accepted a position as assistant director of development. players from Maple Leafs of Toronto. A position she held until 2021 while doing a doctorate in medicine at the University of Calgary. Since last summer, Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser has been promoted to Senior Director of Player Development for the Leaves.

Danielle Goyette served as an assistant coach with the Newfoundland Growlers for a few days this winter as the team dealt with an outbreak of COVID-19.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Patrick Butler

Danielle Goyette

The promotion of Wickenheiser among Maple Leafs enabled her to hire her friend, ex-teammate and ex-coach Danielle Goyette as her assistant. A double Olympic gold medalist, the 56-year-old Quebecer coached Wickenheiser with the University of Calgary Dinos at the start of the last decade. The two women now run an entire department together in the Toronto organization.

When the head coach of the school club of the Maple Leafs in the East Coast League, Growlers from Newfoundland, had to take time off due to COVID-19, in February, Goyette even went to help behind the bench, becoming the first assistant coach in the history of the circuit.

Emilie Castonguay

Photo: Courtesy: Émilie Castonguay

Emilie Castonguay

Émilie Castonguay was until recently the agent of Marie-Philip Poulin and several young stars of the NHL, including Alexis Lafrenière. The work of the 38-year-old Montrealer, however, caught the attention of Canucks of Vancouver who appointed her to the position of assistant general manager in January. Castonguay became only the second woman to hold this position after American Angela Gorgonne in the Ducks of Anaheim in the mid-90s.

Only two weeks after the appointment of Émilie Castonguay, president of hockey operations for the CanucksJim Rutherford, has appointed a second assistant general manager, Cammi Granato.

Brigette Lacquette in a Four Nations Cup match against Finland in November 2016 (Photo: Riku Laukkanen)

Photo: Radio-Canada

Brigette Lacquette

Becoming the first First Nations woman to play hockey for Canada at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, Lacquette failed to break into the national roster in Beijing. The 29-year-old Manitoban, however, continues her pioneering journey in the world of hockey since she joined the ranks of the Blackhawks from Chicago last year. With Blake Bolden (Kings of Los Angeles), Krissy Wendell-Pohl (Penguins of Pittsburgh) and his colleague at the Blackhawks Meghan HunterBrigette Lacquette is one of only four scouts in the Bettman circuit.

Alexandra Mandrycky

Photo: NHL Seattle

Alexandra Mandrycky

The youngest franchise of the NHLthe kraken of Seattle, quickly made diversity an integral part of the team’s identity. In 2019, the first hiring of the kraken in its hockey department was a woman, Alexandra Madrycky, appointed director of hockey research and strategy. University graduate Georgia Tech, the 31-year-old is a specialist in advanced statistics. Co-founder of the specialized website war-on-ice.comMandrycky was eventually recruited by the Wild of Minnesota, where she worked for four years as a data analyst before being offered the job at Seattle.