Canadian defender Lauriane Rougeau, a key cog of Team Canada’s blueline for the past decade and a half, today confirmed her retirement from the game after just one season in the PWHL, at the age of 34, announcing a move to hockey operations with her former club in Toronto.

Already a member of the CWHL’s Montréal Stars by the time she was eighteen, Rougeau went collegiate after her first two pro seasons with the Cornell Big Red, earning four straight second team All-American honours. Rougeau returned to the Stars full-time in 2014, spending the next five seasons with the Stars / Canadiennes franchise, capturing the Clarkson Cup in 2017, making her a pre-PWHL member of the unofficial women’s Triple Gold Club. Following the CWHL’s dissolution in 2019, Rougeau spent four seasons with the PWHPA, winning the league title in 2023, before joining the new PWHL’s Toronto club as a free agent, earning the distinction of scoring the first shootout winner in league history. After her solo season, Rougeau will now move into a role as manager of hockey operations for the recently rechristened Toronto Sceptres.

A Montréal-area native, Rougeau debuted for Team Canada at the 2008 World Under-18 Championship, making her senior debut three years later at the 2011 Four Nations Cup. She made her World Championship debut the following year, capturing Gold in her debut appearance, followed by four straight Silver medals (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017). She also featured on Team Canada at both the 2014 Sochi and 2018 PyeongChang Games, winning Gold at the former and Silver at the latter. Rougeau was also a recurring medallist at the Four Nations Cup, capturing one Gold (2014) and three Silver (2011, 2015, 2017) in four appearances, with her final national team appearance at the 2019-20 Rivalry Series.

Over the course of her career, Rougeau captured the IHLC a total of eleven times, first at the 2011 Four Nations Cup, and the final coming nearly a decade later, on the Rivalry Series Tour just before the start of the global COVID pandemic in 2020. We wish Lauriane and her family the very best for her retirement and the things to come!

Photo Credit: Hockey Canada – IIHF – HHOF – IOC