In late January, the Vancouver Canucks made Émilie Castonguay just the second woman in NHL history to be an assistant general manager. Two weeks later, they've made Cammi Granato the third.
The report came from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman shortly before the Canucks' Wednesday night game against the New York Islanders.
Granato has a history of making history.
In 1998, Granato captained Team USA to the first-ever gold medal in women's hockey in the Olympics. In fact, she was the first woman to score a goal for Team USA in those Olympics and she is still the team's all-time leading scorer. Besides the two Olympics, Granato was captain of Team USA at six World Championships.
In 2008, she was the first woman ever elected to the US Hockey Hall of Fame. She followed that up in 2010 by being one of the first women to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, elected alongside Angela James.
Then, in 2019, Granato broke into the NHL when she became the first woman to be a pro scout for an NHL team. She has been on the west coast as a scout scouting for the Seattle Kraken for the past two-and-a-half seasons. Now, she'll be moving a little further north.
Granato has a long connection to Vancouver — she played two seasons for the Vancouver Griffins in the now-defunct National Women's Hockey League in the early 2000's, but now calls Vancouver home with her husband, Ray Ferraro. Much of her scouting with the Kraken took place in Rogers Arena.
That aspect of the hire is intriguing: Granato has likely watched more Canucks games than any other pro scout in the NHL over the past few years. Not only would she have seen players from around the league but would also have insights into the Canucks players themselves, potentially providing some key information as the Canucks decide what to do with their team going forward.
Granato is very aware of her position as a pioneer.
"There is part of me that wants to represent really well for women, because I know there’ll be more to follow," said Granato of scouting for the Kraken. "There have always been women qualified for this job, I was lucky to be the first one. And it’s cool to know that girls can dream of this now because I had no idea that it was a possibility. I just didn’t think of it, because women just didn’t get hired to NHL roles."
Granato will now get the opportunity to do the same in an NHL front office.
Given her experience as a pro scout, it seems likely that Granato's portfolio as assistant GM will include scouting, just as Castonguay's experience as a player agent with a law degree makes her an ideal fit for dealing with contracts and CBA issues. Derek Clancey, named as an assistant GM in mid-December, has been overseeing professional and amateur scouting — the team may now split those roles, with Clancey focusing on amateur scouting and Granato on pro scouting.
