Les Canadiennes de Montreal

Team history

The Montreal Stars have played in the CWHL since its formation in 2007. The team was formed from players from the Montreal Axion a team that played in the National Women's Hockey League before its demise. Through the team's young history they have seen success in every season that it has played. In their first season, 2007–08, Montreal won 23 games out of 30 regular season contests and finished first overall in the regular season, but lost to Mississauga Chiefs in the playoffs that year in a two-game contest. In 2008–09 the Stars won the Clarkson Cup on March 19, 2009 in Kingston Ontario, the first year that the Clarkson Cup was openly played for between competitive professional women's hockey clubs rather than National teams such as before with Team Canada and Team Sweden in 2006. The Clarkson Cup was won by Montreal by defeating the Minnesota Whitecaps in the final. The game was competitive, with the score close. Initially the game was tied at one goal apiece until Montreal flared with offence scoring two goals. Sabrina Habrec ultimately scored the game winner, in a 3–1 final score. Former Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson was on hand to present the trophy to team captain Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux. It was Adrienne Clarkson's hope that The Clarkson Cup be the women's equivalent to the Stanley Cup. That same season, three players were named to the First and Second team all stars: Caroline Ouellette, Kim St.Pierre and Sabrina Habrec. In 2009–10, the team finished in first place but did not defend the Clarkson Cup in the playoffs.

The team has had much success with league awards to its players. Kim St. Pierre has won the CHWL's award for top goaltender two season's running (2008, 2009), Caroline Ouellette was the CWHL MVP for the 2008–09, Marie-Phillip Poulin was the CWHL's rookie of the year in 2007–2008 at the age of 16 scoring over 40 points in 16 games, and finally Sabrina Harbec lead's the CWHL in scoring with 54 points in 29 games this season.

During the 2013–14 CWHL season, three members of the Stars reached the milestone of 100 career points during the season. It marks the first time in CWHL history that three players from the same franchise reach the century mark in the same season. It began on January 11, when CWHL co-founder Lisa-Marie Breton registered the 100th point of her career. On February 8, Vanessa Davidson earns the 100th point in her CWHL career. Emmanuelle Blais would become the third in a March 8 match against the Boston Blades.

In a game against the Brampton Thunder on December 13, 2015, Noemie Marin registered the 200th point of her CWHL career . She would record two assists in the game, including one on the game-winning tally, to reach the milestone.

Montreal Canadiens partnership, outdoor game

In March 2015, the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League entered into a resource-sharing and marketing partnership with the Stars. Team CEO Geoff Molson explained that given the Canadiens' support of minor hockey in Quebec and the growth of Women's hockey, he felt that it "[was] the right time to concretely support women who play professional hockey, and, at the same time, promote the sport among up-and-coming players". Brenda Andress, commissioner of the CWHL, also stated that the partnership "affords the CWHL an opportunity to grow women's hockey hand in hand with one of the most storied franchises in professional sport." In September 2015, the team unveiled a new identity as Les Canadiennes, adopting the Canadiens' team colors, along with a new rounded "C" emblem alluding to the Canadiens' logo, and containing a star in homage of their previous name.

On December 31, 2015, the Canadiennes participated in an outdoor game, the 2016 Outdoor Women's Classic, against the Boston Pride of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The game was held as an undercard to the following day's NHL Winter Classic, which featured their teams' NHL counterparts—the Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, and was the first ever outdoor professional women's hockey game.

Olympic connection

The team includes notable forwards Caroline Ouellette, Sarah Vaillancourt and goaltender Kim St. Pierre, all members of the 2010 Canadian Women's Hockey Olympic team who won the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver.

For the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, Stars players Ouellette, Haley Irwin, Charline Labonté and Catherine Ward competed for Team Canada, while Julie Chu was a member of Team USA.

Social implication

Montreal stars support the fight against breast cancer with a Breast Cancer Fundraising event. For the occasion, the Montreal Stars played with pink jerseys. Also Montreal Stars are committed to supporting amateur girls' hockey teams and take their role as examples to the young girls growing up playing the sport, very seriously. The "Training with the Stars" events are just one way that these athletes connect with young players. They are also available to meet the girls at the autograph sessions following most of their games, they are accessible through the team blog, and many of them are involved in various community and school girls' hockey teams.

Season-by-season

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime losses, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, Pts = Points.

Season standings

As of 2011, the Montreal Stars have a total of 3 regular season championships and two Clarkson cups in 4 Seasons of play.

Awards and honors

Current roster (2015–16)

Updated January 4, 2016.

Coaching staff (2015–16)