Emma Maltais Embraces Her Quebec Roots With the Montreal Victoire

One of the Montreal Victoire’s most significant acquisitions this summer is undoubtedly Emma Maltais. A veteran of two Olympic Games and five world championships with Team Canada, the forward signed a two-year contract with Montreal after spending the PWHL’s first three seasons in Toronto.

Beyond what she will bring on the ice, Maltais’s arrival carries added significance because of her deep Quebec roots.

Her father, Mario Maltais, is from Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, a former municipality that is now part of Alma, in the Lac-Saint-Jean region. Although Emma grew up in Burlington, Ontario, she has always maintained a close connection to Quebec. She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while her father was working on a highway project in the Boston area, before her family settled in Burlington prior to her first birthday.

That connection was once again on display this summer when Maltais hosted a camp for young girls from the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region for the second time in three years. The inaugural edition was held at Alma’s Mario-Tremblay Arena in 2024, but renovations forced her to move this year’s camp to Jonquière.

For Maltais, bringing the camp to a region with which she and her family share such deep ties was especially meaningful.

“Yeah, I mean, I obviously do my camp in Burlington, and I feel like it's been very successful. But Burlington, there's just so many opportunities to do women's hockey camps,” explained the 26-year-old during a phone interview last Friday.

“I feel like those opportunities in a small town are very minimal, especially for young girls playing hockey. I feel like the majority of the time, if you want to reach the next level, you have to play with boys, or if you want to learn something new, you have to go to the boys program. So I reached out to the Rebelles organization and they loved the idea of having me here. And I feel like it's not only giving them the opportunity to be around other girls and kind of challenge themselves, but also just to be around someone who can call their job a hockey player, and I think that's great for them. I think they can just understand more what it means to be an athlete every day, the commitment it does take. So I feel like the more I can talk with them, connect with them, the more they can become fans of the entire PWHL.”

The second edition, held last week, brought together 45 players from the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte-Nord regions, as well as Ontario—15 more than in 2024. The camp took a one-year hiatus last summer while Maltais attended several Team Canada training camps.

Reflecting the success of the inaugural edition, several players returned for a second time this year.

“A lot of the older girls did comeback. The younger group, I had a lot of new girls, a couple of the same girls, but for the older group, I think it was about half of them were the same. That was really cool to see,” said Maltais, who has recorded 38 points in 84 games since making her PWHL debut.

Playing for Team Canada comes with certain advantages. Maltais was able to enlist the help of the two Quebec players alongside whom she won gold in Beijing and silver in Milan: Marie-Philip Poulin and Ann-Renée Desbiens, who will also be her teammates with the Victoire next season.

“We did a Zoom call with Marie-Philip and Ann-Renée actually was in town today and she stopped by. So that was a nice surprise for the girls too.”

The young girls were even more excited to meet Maltais this year as she prepares to wear the Victoire’s colours for the first time.

“I think they were definitely really excited. I think that's a lot of fun that I can connect with them in that way because a lot of them are Victoire fans. I think the experience they got even when I played for Toronto was kind of equally as similar, but I think because they know more players on the Victoire, they watch them more, they understand that I'm going to be around like Poulin every day, Stacey, Ann-Renée. I think that to them it’s a little bit more real.”

Victoire fans are likely to embrace Emma Maltais quickly. On the ice, she is known as one of the PWHL’s most effective trash-talkers. Away from the rink, her outgoing and engaging personality shines through, including in her active presence on social media.

Since learning that she would be continuing her career in Montreal, Maltais has been working diligently to improve her French—an especially valuable skill when playing in a province where roughly 8.5 million people speak the language.

“Obviously, by day five of the camp, my French has definitely gotten a lot better, but when I was at home, I was doing classes at University of Toronto. I've done four or five of them now and then. My boyfriend and my dad sometimes help me, but I've been watching some TV too, Lupin on Netflix, so I feel like that helps probably the most.”

Already during postgame press conferences, reporters seeking an answer in French were invited to ask their questions in English and specify that they wanted Maltais to respond in French. It was a perfectly reasonable accommodation—and one that reflected her genuine commitment to the language.

“Every summer I come here, right, to visit family, and it's always been very important to me,” explained the three-time world championship gold medallist. “I think it's really cool where my dad's from. Being from a small town, northern Quebec, my grandpa, like, they all grew up on the farm. My grandma and grandpa had the farm. Now my cousin runs the farm. And they're always very supportive of me. I always love the way of life here, the way people care about each other. So I feel like I just had a kind of a connection to my family here.”

In addition to her French-speaking relatives—her mother is an anglophone from Toronto—Maltais can count on the support of her boyfriend, Archer Brookman. The couple met at Ohio State University, and Brookman is from Pointe-Claire, on Montreal’s West Island.

Like Maltais, Brookman is a professional athlete, playing baseball in the Atlanta Braves organization.

Therefore, Maltais’s Quebec connections are nothing new. Whenever Toronto played in Verdun or Laval, several members of her family made the trip to support her. More than 50 relatives and friends were in attendance when she played at the Bell Centre in April 2024.

“My dad's sister lives in Montreal, a couple of my cousins live there, a couple of my dad's friends,” said Maltais. “My dad's family growing up, it was always Les Maltais contre les Tremblay. We're always really good at hockey. So he has a couple friends, cousins, that live in Montreal and are really invested, two came to the Olympics, actually, so that's pretty cool. And I feel like I'll see them a lot also.”

“My boyfriend's family lives in Montreal, so a lot of those noisy fans are my boyfriend's friends, who are also very supportive, and family,” she added, with a laugh. “So I'm really lucky to have all that support. I'm sure they'll be consistently there. Maybe not as big of a crowd, but maybe sometimes when we have a weekend game or something like that.”

Maltais understands the resonance her name already carries in Quebec—and the even greater significance it could take on as she begins representing the Victoire.

“I think also playing for Toronto, even when I played in Montreal, I could tell just because of my last name, Maltais. It's obvious it's French. And I feel like I owe it to my last name to practice that, keep that in my family. I think that's really important to me. So, I do what I can. Obviously, I know it's hard to maintain your French, so that's why I wanted to pick it back up. And, you know, I like to challenge myself, too, so I think that's a good way to do that. And, you know, it's inspirational to see how much people connect with players like Marie-Philip and also Ann-Renée. And I think that's pretty cool to see. And I would love to be one of those players, too, that they can connect in communities like this.”