7 fun facts about new Canucks front office hire Rachel Doerrie
Not many 25-year-olds are as accomplished as Rachel Doerrie.
The Vancouver Canucks announced on Thursday that they’d hired Doerrie in an Analyst, Hockey Analytics role.
Here are seven things you should know about the newest member of the Canucks front office.
1. She helped her dad win in fantasy hockey
Doerrie’s basically been involved with hockey her entire life. She started skating when she was four years old and by the time she was six, Doerrie was playing organized hockey with the boys.
However, one of the signs that she might have a future in management came when she helped her dad with fantasy hockey homework.
Seriously.
Doerrie’s dad was in a pretty serious hockey pool, and he’d recruit his daughter to help him with researching the best players to draft.
“When youâre 10, 11 years old and your dad comes home with a couple thousand dollars for you because of your hockey homework, lifeâs pretty good,” Doerrie’s mother Karen said in an interview with The Athletic in 2019.
2. Finished high school and university early
From a young age, it seemed like Doerrie was always punching above her weight class.
She graduated from high school a year early. In the United States, that’s something fewer than 3% of kids accomplish.
Doerrie took that a step further by finishing her degree in Sports Management a year early as well.
3. Youngest person to ever join an NHL analytics department
The grind of graduating both high school and university early paid off in a big way for the Ontario native.
Doerrie got her first paid job in the NHL back in December of 2017, when she was hired by the New Jersey Devils as an Analyst for Player Information and Video.
At 21 years old, she wasn’t just the youngest female to join an NHL analytics department. She was the youngest person ever to earn such a role.
Aside from her educational endeavours, Doerrie gained experience by working with the Sudbury Wolves and Hockey Canada as a video coach. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also volunteered with the Toronto Maple Leafs in helping the team with video from their development camp.
On the Staff and Graph Podcast, Doerrie also mentioned that she interviewed to be hired by the Leafs prior to joining the Devils.
4. Spearheaded mental health initiative with Devils
Doerrie was let go from the Devils organization early in 2019. That meant she missed out on the team’s “Mental Health Awareness Night” that Doerrie played a part in creating.
She told this story about how the initiative came to fruition.
“[Devils’ CEO] Scott OâNeil had a meeting where he got together with coordinator-level people in the office. It was just sort of an informal âletâs talkâ thing. He asked if we had any questions for him.”
“I said, âI want to know why this organization doesnât do anything in the mental health space because itâs something that is really important, especially given the fact that athletes have come out and said theyâve suffered from mental health issues and felt like they didnât get enough support.ââ
After that meeting, the idea was presented to the organization, and the Devils’ first “Mental Health Awareness” night occurred in February 2019.
5. “Why I’ll be the first female GM”
Talk about a manifesto.
Back in 2016, Doerrie wrote an article for The Bloggers’ Tribune titled “Why I’ll be the first female NHL GM.”
“I could explain things at a young age and watch developing plays that my fatherâs friends were in awe of,” Doerrie wrote. “As I started to mature, I realized I watched the game a little differently than most. It wasnât, ‘The powerplay isnât clicking, this is frustrating.’ It became, ‘The powerplay isnât clicking and this is why.'”
6. Bayern Munich and Toronto FC Fan
Proud of her German heritage, Doerrie is a big fan of powerhouse franchise Bayern Munich.
This is a Bayern, Toronto FC and DFB twitter account â˝ď¸
— Rachel Doerrie (@racheldoerrie) January 20, 2022
She’s also hitched herself to the Toronto FC bandwagon.
7. She’s been critical of Canucks in the past
Who hasn’t?
Doerrie has voiced her confusion about the direction of the team on multiple occasions, including on her podcast and in articles posted on Elite Prospects.
However, she had a quote for the ages on a previous podcast episode.
“Either way you slice it, Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic are playing 5-D chess, and Jim Benning is gluing macaroni pieces to construction paper,” Doerrie said.
Back in November she also said “Scotty Bowman couldn’t coach that blue line,” in reference to the Canucks defence outside of Quinn Hughes.
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