Élise Béliveau `always beside' husband Jean, `not behind him'
Website devoted to women and hockey interviews widow of Canadiens icon
When Élise Couture met her future husband Jean Béliveau in 1950, she was not a hockey fan.
“I didn't know anything about hockey at the time,” Élise Béliveau says in a new half-hour interview that will première Thursday on a website devoted to women and hockey.
“I didn't go to see hockey games,” she says. “My mother was a hockey fan, but in terms of me going out or being friends with a hockey player, she had her doubts. But when she met Jean, she changed her mind. She changed her opinion.”
Jean Béliveau was one of the greatest players to ever don a Montreal Canadiens jersey, winning 10 Stanley Cups while playing for the team. He died in 2014.
In the new interview, Élise Béliveau also mentions that her husband of 61 years wasn't averse to helping out in the kitchen.
“He liked doing that,” she says. “He liked doing the dishes. But he preferred to wash them. He liked washing, not drying them.”
The interview will première Thursday at 6 p.m. on the website femme.hockey and its associated Youtube channel.
The site is the brainchild of Isabelle Éthier, a passionate hockey fan who felt there was a need for a platform in French to discuss the place of women in the world of hockey.
Éthier, who has her own marketing company, woke up one night early in the pandemic and thought she had do this.
“I realized there was no platform talking to and about women involved in hockey,” she said. “There are some platforms in English in the U.S. for hockey moms. There are some for women hockey players. But there's not one for all the women (in the hockey milieu) and not at all in French.
“For me, it's very important to acknowledge the place of women in hockey. Because hockey is not only on the ice. It's also in our lives. If you are the mother or wife of the hockey player or coach or the volunteer or you work in the business or you're the girlfriend, hockey is part of your life. Women like to watch hockey and be involved, but mostly it's not in the same way that men like to do it. So I thought: Why not highlight the place of women in our favourite sport?”
Since debuting in early June, Éthier has aired interviews with female hockey players, journalists and National Hockey League players, including three-time Olympic gold medallist/goalie Kim St-pierre, former Tampa Bay Lightning star Vincent Lecavalier, ex-canadiens Stéphane Quintal, Guillaume Latendresse and Georges Laraque, current Canadiens executive France Margaret Bélanger, and RDS reporter and host Chantal Machabée.
When Éthier talks to NHL players like Lecavalier and Quintal, they don't talk about goals and championships.
“We talk about their story, the human side of it,” she said. “What was the role of your family in it? What was the role of your mom or sister or wife?”
The interview that goes online Thursday is with both Élise Béliveau and her daughter Hélène.
“She's authentic,” Éthier said of Élise Béliveau. “She's real. She doesn't want any bulls---. She loves you or she doesn't. And she likes people. But she doesn't need to be in the spotlight. She doesn't like interviews. It makes her sad to talk about Jean, but she decided to do it because it's for a good reason. She wants to be more private right now.”
Oh, and Béliveau put in her two cents on the current Habs. “She said, `It's about time to have a Stanley Cup now. It's been too long since we had one.' ”
The lesson Éthier takes from Béliveau's life is “that she was always beside her husband, not behind him.”
She believes we feel reassured when we still see her at Canadiens games.
“To see her, you say: `OK, everything's going to be all right, she's there.' It's part of our folklore,” said Éthier.
Éthier still vividly remembers the night of Dec. 9, 2014, the day before the funeral for Jean Béliveau, when Élise sat beside her husband's empty seat and the crowd at the Bell Centre erupted with an emotional salute to her late husband and then to her when she appeared on the big screen.
So to sit down with Béliveau was a dream come true for Éthier.