Caroline Ouellette Great Addition to Stingers Coaching Staff

The embodiment of the word leadership, Caroline Ouellette has quietly assembled a strong body of work in the realm of coaching. Now she prepares to join legendary Les Lawton’s coaching staff with the Concordia Stingers of Canadian Interuniversity Sport. The legend of her superlative playing career shall enrich the careers of the Stingers that she will be mentoring.

Based in the city of Montreal, the Stingers were once a national power that has now fallen on hard times. In the wake of their decline, Montreal has produced some other outstanding women’s hockey programs at the university level. The McGill Martlets are multiple-time national champions, while the Montreal Carabins (managed by Daniele Sauvageau) recently claimed a silver medal at the 2012 CIS national championship.

The arrival of Ouellette at Concordia University might signal the beginning of a new winning era. There is no question that her presence on the coaching staff will have a strong influence on recruiting next spring.

One of her better known forays into coaching included a brush with history. For the 2007-08 season, Ouellette and Harvard Crimson legend Julie Chu assisted on Shannon Miller’s coaching staff with the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. With a squad that boasted the likes of future Canadian national team members Emmanuelle Blais, Haley Irwin and Jocelyne Larocque, the Bulldogs won the 2008 NCAA Frozen Four. This would make Ouellette the first woman to win the Frozen Four as a player and as a coach.

On a side note, Blais and Chu would team up with Ouellette as members of the Montreal Stars to claim the 2012 Clarkson Cup.

Unknown to fans, Ouellette was a key contributor in the early years of the development of Hockey Canada’s Under-18 national women’s team. Her first experience came as an assistant coach in July 2007, at the National Women’s Under-19 evaluation camp. In August 2008, Ouellette assisted behind the bench in Canada’s three-game Under-18 exhibition versus the United States. Along with Danielle Goyette, she was an assistant on the Canadian Under-18 national team that participated in the 2009 IIHF Under-18 Women’s Worlds Championship.

In addition, she provided coaching services to the Lynx du Collège Édouard-Montpetit women's ice hockey program. Ouellette has also been a great mentor to other players. When the French national women’s team did a two-week tour of Quebec in August 2012, Ouellette (and McGill Martlets legend Charline Labonte) spent a day coaching them. She has also been known to help rookies on the Montreal Stars by going as far as renting ice time and providing them with top-notch instruction.

As a member of the Montreal Stars' "big three" (with Meghan Agosta and Julie Chu), Ouellette is one of the most prominent players in women’s ice hockey. She follows in the footsteps of other Montreal Stars players (such as team founder and captain Lisa-Marie Breton, and Nathalie Dery) who have assisted Les Lawton on his coaching staff. While her playing background alone commands respect, her coaching resume shows her versatility. A former Stingers player herself, she has benefitted greatly from Lawton’s tutelage.

Ouellette joining the Stingers is the equivalent of Ted Williams becoming the Washington Senators coach in baseball, or Magic Johnson coaching the Los Angeles Lakers (which he did for less than half a season in 1994).

When Les Lawton coached her as a player, he helped to mold her into one of the finest players in the world, and he will certainly have an influence in helping to mold and develop her as a world-class coach.