Where are they now?
Breaking the ice
Making the QMJHL’s first-ever outdoor game a reality took a village to be sure, but the Winter Classic in Saint-Tite couldn’t have happened without the know-how of a pair of the league’s former players.
In the mid 1990s, Patrick Couture and Yannick Tremblay were busy making a name for themselves in the Q as a goalie and defenceman, respectively. Now they’re back where it all began for them, gaining notoriety for a whole other reason.
Following Couture’s hockey career that took him from the QMJHL to around the world in various minor pro leagues and Tremblay’s puck journey that saw him get drafted by the Toronto before playing parts of nine seasons in the NHL with the Leafs, Thrashers and Canucks, they teamed up to form Glaces CT.
From its humble beginnings to now counting upwards of 20 employees, the company has come a long way since the two business partners first met as teammates with the Beauport Harfangs.
“Yannick and I talked about starting a training centre specialized to cater to both goalies and players in the Quebec City region and we wanted to have our own equipment,” explains Couture.
Co-owned by Couture and Tremblay, Glaces CT now holds the rights to develop Red Bull Crashed Ice events in the Canada and the US and have now also emerged as outdoor event specialists. Armed with their experience of putting on an outdoor game at the Midget AAA level between Levis and Rivière-du-Loup, Couture and Tremblay then tackled the ambitious project of turning Saint-Tite’s rodeo stadium into a winter wonderland for the QMJHL for their first Winter Classic.
“This year alone our achievements include our rink on the Plaines of Abraham in Quebec and what we just did in Saint-Tite which was simply magical,” described the Couture, a proud Quebec City native and QMJHL alumnus who set a Remparts record with a 1.85 GAA back in 1997-98.
The team at Glaces CT won’t soon forget the weekend of Jan. 24-25 given they not only made history with the QMJHL outdoor games but were also simultaneously running a Crashed Ice event in Minnesota that same week-end! Being busy is par for the course for 36-year-old Couture and 39-year-old Tremblay and their growing company.
Always looking to innovate, the catalyst to the outdoor rink success enjoy by the QMJHL duo stems back to a discovery made by Tremblay while playing in Austria following his NHL days.
“We ended up importing an Austrian product that Yannick saw when he played there. It’s a system that’s similar to what the NHL uses for their outdoor games,” said Couture.
If they where relative unknowns in the outdoor ice game a few years back, that certainly isn’t the case now for Couture and Tremblay or their company.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the media coverage in both Quebec and Montreal for the QMJHL Winter Classic,” says Couture. “Our objective remains the same it has ever been and that is help people enjoy themselves outdoors as much as possible.”
Mission accomplished, boys.
