Émilie Castonguay's vision board, late sister predicted Canucks job

Never before has a woman held a hockey decision-making job this senior in Vancouver Canucks history. She’s just the second female in NHL history to be hired as an assistant general manager, following Angela Gorgone, who was hired by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in 1996.

Who could have seen it coming?

New Canucks assistant GM Émilie Castonguay and her late sister, that’s who.

Castonguay, who was hired by the Canucks today, played Division 1 NCAA hockey at Niagara University from 2005 to 2009, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in finance. She earned a law degree from l’Université de Montréal in 2012, and is also a member of the Quebec Bar Association.

She later became a player agent, representing the likes of former Canuck Antoine Roussel, Alexis Lafrenière of the New York Rangers, and Canadian Olympic star Marie-Philip Poulin, among others.

But all along, she believed Vancouver was in her future.

“Personally I have a very strong relationship with the city of Vancouver for different reasons,” Castonguay said from her home in Montreal. “Personally, it’s just always been a place where I wanted to be and where I wanted to live.”

Years ago, Castonguay said she wrote down “Vancouver” and an age. And it appears the 38-year-old is ahead of schedule.

“I have a vision board at home that I’ve had for over 5-6 years,” she said. “On it, I had written a certain age, and I had written Vancouver beside it, just because I wanted to be in Vancouver at that point in my life. I didn’t know how I was going to get there or how it was going to happen, but I turn that age in about a month and a half.

“It’s always been kind of in the back of my mind on my vision board. Whether it was as an agent or working for the NHL, I didn’t know how I was going to be there, but it’s pretty awesome that it worked out that way. For me, Vancouver was a no-brainer. I feel like they have a great young team that’s hungry to win and I’m just really happy to be part of their journey now.”

When answering a question in French, Castonguay revealed that in the last conversation she had with her late sister nearly 10 years ago, she predicted that one day Émilie would manage the Canucks.

“She told me that I would manage the Vancouver Canucks one day,” Castonguay said, translated below by Marc Antoine Godin of The Athletic.

“For the Canucks to call me, it was a pretty emotional moment for me… I felt like it was kind of the universe that got me there.”

Here’s the translated text (per @MAGodin) of Émilie Castonguay’s French language answer about her late sister, who told her in one of their final conversations that she’d manage the #Canucks one day: pic.twitter.com/fw3wD1V5k9

— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) January 24, 2022

 

Castonguay will play a big role with the Canucks management team, as negotiating player contracts will be one of her responsibilities.

While she said that she never really thought about gender on her journey to get to this level, the historical significance was not lost on Castonguay.

“Obviously it is a big day, whether I would want it or not. I think it’s an historic day. It goes to show that women have a place in sports and in hockey.”

"It's a historic day, it goes to show that women have a place in sports and in hockey."

🗣️ Canucks Assistant General Manager Émilie Castonguay pic.twitter.com/3tO1Kyjitl

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 24, 2022

Prior to climbing the ladder for the last 7+ years with Momentum Hockey Agency, Castonguay said she was mentored by former Montreal Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier.

“I never really thought about gender when I was going through my journey. I had a very non-binary approach to it, in the sense that I wanted to do something in hockey and I wanted it to mean something to me… I just never let gender get in the way.”

Beyond serendipity, Castonguay said she chose to come to Vancouver because of Jim Rutherford, and the new Canucks President of Hockey Operations’ vision for the team.

“I believed in his vision. I believed in what the Aquilini family and management wanted to do. They wanted to build a team that was diverse, that had different opinions, and that could bring different things to the table. I was really impressed by everything that they wanted to do, and obviously bought into it.”

You might also like:
• Canucks' Boudreau emotional after touching video tribute in 1,000th game