Getting To Know: Goaltender William Rousseau

Iowa Heartlanders goaltender William Rousseau and the Heartlanders continue a ten-game road trip before returning home on March 21^st for ten home games to end the regular season. 

Since Rousseau joined the Heartlanders he has been named an ECHL Midseason All-Star and ECHL Goaltender of the Month, in addition to earning a two-year AHL contract with the Iowa Wild. He caught up with Director of Communications David Fine to chat about why he became a goaltender, earning his pilot's license and his winning pedigree in the QMJHL.

David: Will, tell us how it all started for you in your hometown Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

William Rousseau: Actually, it was in Louiseville, Quebec, so that was where my grandfather was, Bobby Rousseau. He won four Stanley Cups over there with Montreal, played after with the Minnesota North Stars, and then went to the New York Rangers to finish his career off. My grandfather was in Louiseville when I started playing at seven, eight years old. One day, I just played as a goalie and stuck with the position.

Dad was not very happy about the equipment cost at first. I basically started from there and then played my minor hockey in Trois-Rivières and got to Major Triple A, which is the league just under major junior in Quebec. I got scouted by the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts but I wasn't sure if I was going to NCAA here in Omaha. I had a verbal commitment with them for a little bit.

One day, [NHL Hall of Famer and owner of the Remparts] Patrick Roy called me and just said, “hey, Will, we'd really like to have you down here in Quebec.” I visited their arena with 18,000 seats, so I was pretty impressed for a 16-year-old guy.

DF: What was it like getting a call from arguably the best NHL goalie of all time saying, hey, I want you to play for us?

WR: Yeah, it was special. I mean, it's not every day that you receive that call and knowing that the organization was ready for me. I was the first goaltender in net over there for a few years and had some pretty good seasons.

We lost, I think, only two or three games in that [2023] playoff run and then went to British Columbia for the Memorial Cup Championship and the rest of it is history. So, it was pretty fun. 

DF: You talked a little bit about your grandfather's influence, Bobby Rousseau. I know he's on the back of your mask, which I think is awesome with a little hockey card. So, tell us about the influence that he had in your life growing up. 

WR: When I was young, he always was around the team before games. He was an ambassador for a couple teams I played when I was young. So, he was around the room, you know, shaking hands pregame, showing some Stanley Cup rings and stuff. Just, you know, getting inspired by that and being as a kid, looking at those rings or he got some like miniature Stanley Cups that are really pretty nice too, with all the names that are on it. Seeing my grandfather's name on it makes me want to add my name in there.

He won the Mem Cup (Memorial Cup) too. So, I got the chance to put my name there with his brother that is also there, too. 

DF: What's on your mask for people to look at that's out of the ordinary besides some Heartlanders stuff?

WR: So, it's probably all the back plate that has all the information. I know my second mask with the Iowa Wild has lots of things on it that are, like, kind of hidden. So, I can talk about it a bit. But, for the Heartlanders mask, I just put a little quote there. It says, “this is my happy place.” 

Embracing that pressure to be a goaltender, for sure, is something special. It's a privilege and that quote is a reminder. 

On my other mask with the Iowa Wild, I featured some airplanes in the background because I got my private pilot’s license. So, I got, like, a big lake where a seaplane is landing on the lake, and I got some big crops and some turbines, and I got a crop duster plane. And the back plate, again, it's my grandfather’s Minnesota North Stars card.

And, yeah, and a little quote from my grandmother, too, “Bravo, mon champion.” That's in French. So, it says, good job, my champion. She used to say that a lot. 

DF: This is all amazing and did I hear right? You have your pilot’s license, you can fly? 

WR: Yeah, that's right. So, starting as a young age, I was probably 15, 16 years old, took a flight to Europe for one of those tournaments I was talking about. And it was old aircraft. It was an Airbus 340, which is probably some unfamiliar vocabulary for you guys. So, it was an old plane, a four-engine plane.

And I just love the fact that I was like, going through some different airspace, how the weather works, why it rains or thunderstorms, and all that kind of stuff. So, I'm an aviation geek. I was on YouTube watching those videos. I had my simulator at home that I was running. Then in Quebec, I finally decided to take my license. And it took me a year and a half to get my private license.

And I'm still working in the summers to get my commercial license, for some small aviation work like checking wildfires or I can photograph some places. It's a passion of mine.

DF: Do you want to be a pilot as a career after your hockey career is over?

WR: Yeah, 100%. I'm 35 years old, and you see me with a co-pilot or piloting American Airlines in some place, I'll be there. 

DF: When you think of what you were able to do over the course of your junior career, how do you reflect on it about a year later? You led some QMJHL franchises to some places that were very special, like winning a Memorial Cup. 

WR: Yeah, I think it was really privileged to play for those teams. The way that they were playing in front of me reflected for sure and made my life easier, but I also made some good saves along the way. Knowing that I'm with a good team here with the Heartlanders, we know it's just about embracing those big moments with the guys here.

DF: How valuable is that for you to get in as many games as possible in the ECHL and AHL this year to develop?

WR: Yeah, I think as a goalie for sure it’s important to be excellent at reading the play and you got to play for sure to be able to read plays. But the relationship me and Kyle McClellan and Dante [Giannuzzi] have is great. We have some excellent goaltenders, I think here. And yeah, the relationship we have and how we push ourselves too is pretty important.

It’s pretty fun playing pro. It's different than junior for sure. It’s a fast game. The shots, a bit harder and yeah, it's pretty nice. 

DF: When was the first time you talked to Derek Damon about potentially joining the Heartlanders? 

WR: It was through summer. I was looking with my agent, you know, someplace I would go, and Minnesota had a dev (development) camp going and I was really talking to Frederic Chabot, the goalie coach in Minnesota.

They said we would really like you to continue to play hockey here in the ECHL with the Iowa. 

And then coach called me, Derek called me and then he was really looking forward to meeting me and was very happy with me and we signed with Iowa. We basically started there and he called me a couple of times through the summer, just checking in and checking on my training. 

DF: With other teams that may have been interested or calling you, like, what about Heartlanders, Iowa Wild, Minnesota Wild, maybe ended up being the deciding factor for you? 

WR: Iowa was the only one. 

DF: That's great. The only one?

WR: My grandfather was here too with the Minnesota organization. So, following in his footsteps again, it's pretty important for me. So yeah, I really liked that.