Canadiennes de Montreal

Les Canadiennes de Montreal are a professional women's ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 2007 as the Montreal Stars (Stars de Montréal), they have competed in the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) since its inaugural season. The team has appeared in and won the Clarkson Cup the most times out of any CWHL teams, having won the league's championship four times since its inception.

In 2015, the team became an affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League, with the franchise providing resources and marketing support to the team as part of their efforts to help promote women's hockey. This affiliation also led to its re-branding as Les Canadiennes for the 2015–16 CWHL season, adopting colours and jerseys resembling those of their men's counterpart. In December 2015, the Canadiennes and the Boston Pride played the first ever outdoor game in professional women's hockey as part of festivities for the 2016 NHL Winter Classic in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Team history
Les Canadiennes de Montréal have played in the CWHL since its formation in 2007. The Montreal Stars was formed from players from the Montreal Axion a team that played in the National Women's Hockey League before its demise, re-branding as Les Canadiennes for the 2015-16 season. 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.

On December 11th 2016, Caroline Ouellette, already the League's all time leader in points and assists, registered her 300th career point. She then tied Jayna Hefford's league record of 130 goals on January 29th 2017, finishing the season with 309 career points and 130 career goals.

Montreal Canadiens partnership
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.

2016 Outdoor Women's Winter Classic
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.

The Bell Center
On December 10th 2017, Les Canadiennes played a regular season game against the Calgary Inferno at the Bell Center. They beat the Inferno 1-0 (goal by captain Marie-Philip Poulin) in regular time in front of nearly 6000 spectators, marking a great success for the first ever CWHL hockey game to be played at the home of the Montreal Canadiens.

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
Les Canadiennes support the fight against breast cancer with a Breast Cancer Fundraising event. For the occasion, Les Canadiennes play with pink jerseys at their annual breast cancer fundraiser. Les Canadiennes are also 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 "Canadiennes Camps" 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 social media, and many of them are involved in various community outreach events and school girls' hockey teams.

Season-by-season
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OL = Overtime losses, SL = Shootout Loss, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, Pts = Points.

Season standings
As of 2018, Les Canadiennes have a total of seven (8) regular season championships and four (4) Clarkson Cups in 11 Seasons of play.

Awards and honors

 * CWHL Chairman's Trophy: 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16.
 * Jayna Hefford Trophy:
 * 2015-16, 2016-17: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * CWHL Most Valuable Player:
 * 2008-09, 2010-11: Caroline Ouellette
 * 2009-10: Sabrina Harbec
 * 2011-12: Meghan Agosta
 * 2013-14: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * 2015-16, 2016-17: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * Angela James Bowl :
 * 2009-10: Sabrina Harbec
 * 2010-11: Caroline Ouellette
 * 2011-12, 2012-13: Meghan Agosta
 * 2013-14: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * 2015-16, 2016-17 (co-winner): Marie-Philip Poulin
 * CWHL Coach of the Year:
 * 2014-15: Dany Brunet
 * CWHL Goals Leader:
 * 2009-10: Noémie Marin
 * 2012-13, 2013-14, 2016-17: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * 2015-16: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * CWHL Assists Leader:
 * 2008-09, 2010-11: Caroline Ouellette
 * 2009-10: Sabrina Harbec
 * 2011-12, 2012-13: Meghan Agosta
 * 2013-14, 2015-16: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * 2016-17: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * CWHL Top Forward:
 * 2009-10: Sabrina Harbec
 * 2010-11: Caroline Ouellette
 * 2011-12: Meghan Agosta
 * 2013-14: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * 2015-16, 2016-17: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * CWHL Top Defender:
 * 2009-10: Annie Guay
 * 2011-12, 2012-13: Catherine Ward
 * 2013-14: Cathy Chartrand
 * CWHL Top Goaltender:
 * 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11: Kim St-Pierre
 * 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17: Charline Labonté
 * CWHL Outstanding Rookie:
 * 2007-08: Marie-Philip Poulin
 * 2010-11: Sarah Vaillancourt
 * 2012-13: Ann-Sophie Bettez
 * Humanitarian of the Year Award:
 * 2015-16: Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux
 * Cathy Chartrand, 2012–13 Leading scorer among CWHL Defenders
 * Cathy Chartrand, 2013–14 Leading scorer among CWHL Defenders

Coaching staff (2015–16)

 * General Manager: Meg Hewings
 * Head Coach: Dany Brunet
 * Assistant Coach: Marc Beaudoin
 * Assistant Coach / Director of Player Development: Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux
 * Assistant Coach: Jenny Lavigne
 * Technical Coach: Kelly Sudia
 * Goaltending Coach: Gilles Charron
 * Strength and Conditioning Coach: Jordan Burgess
 * Recruiter: Étienne Rouillard
 * Video Coach: Steve Lortie

External news story

 * Montreal 2011 Clarkson Cup Champions, March 27, 2011.
 * Montreal wins Clarkson Cup. March 28, 2011.
 * St-Pierre backstops Montreal to Clarkson Cup title in CBC news, March 27, 2011.
 * Montreal Stars win women's national hockey championship, in CBC news, March 21, 2009.
 * First Clarkson Cup stays in Canada, Slam sports, March 22, 2009.
 * McGill grads help Stars capture Clarkson Cup McGill newspaper, March 21, 2009
 * Stars de Montréal old blog