Trois-Rivières, Québec is nestled on the bank of the St. Lawrence river, just about halfway between Montréal and Québec City. It is a 12 ½-hour drive from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer had finished out his season.
He was home for the summer, preparing to leave for college in mid-August. Cournoyer was sitting on the couch, eyes glued to his TV with his brother by his side. Day two of the NHL draft is long and unforgiving, taking multiple hours to get through rounds two through seven, a total of 192 picks made in one sitting.
But Cournoyer was in a time crunch — he had a flight departing from Montréal at 8 p.m. He had received an invitation to the Nashville Predators’ prospect development camp after his strong 2024-2025 season.
It was around 3:45 p.m., Cournoyer recalls.
“I had to go at 4 p.m.,” he said. “And there's an ad coming up on the TV. I turn around, I look at my brother. I was like, ‘imagine getting drafted during an ad? How bad would that be?’”
Cournoyer switched over to the NHL app to keep tabs on the draft during the commercial break.
With one quick refresh, everything changed.
“It was Montréal,” Cournoyer said with a massive grin. “And I see my name, goalie. I just dropped my phone on the floor. I was like, ‘That's me! Let's go!’”
Cournoyer ultimately got selected in the fifth round of the draft, 145th overall.
“It was a dream come true. It was such a great feeling, and I'm very grateful for what happened to me,” Cournoyer said.
Evidently, plans changed. That flight to Nashville was cancelled and it would be just a quick drive to get to Montréal Canadiens development camp.
It wasn’t the first time Cournoyer had to pivot so suddenly. He had been moving around all season — at the beginning of last season, Cournoyer was playing Junior A hockey and wasn’t on any NHL draft boards. The fact that he was being drafted — let alone by his hometown team — was something he had deemed near impossible.
“I was a nobody until January,” Cournoyer said. “And then everything kind of popped up out of nowhere.”
But after he debuted in the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League in January, he coasted to a 13-6-1 record and a .942 save percentage in one of Canada's top leagues. The 6’ 4” specimen in net quickly arose to become the No. 16-ranked goaltender by NHL Central Scouting. His performance secured him a spot at Cornell, making him the first drafted goaltender the Red has had in 23 years.
All of that, though, came not without the help of a former player’s dad.
Trevor Stienburg — a former NHL player and father of Matt Stienburg ’23 — lives fulltime near Halifax, Nova Scotia. After a playing career cut short by injury, he forged a path in professional hockey scouting and has spent the last five seasons as a regional amateur scout for the Seattle Kraken.
He was hearing noise from coaches up in Cape Breton, the easternmost team in the QMJHL. There was this new kid — a goaltender — that came up out of nowhere, and he was beginning to draw NHL interest.
Doing his due diligence, Stienburg investigated. The kid — Cournoyer — had his QMJHL rights traded to the Cape Breton Eagles. He had spent the first half of the season with the Truro Bearcats, a team in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League.
Stienburg knew Truro’s head coach — Jon Greenwood — so he decided to give him a call. Stienburg was met with a very distraught Greenwood.
“He said, ‘Man, I just lost the best goalie in the league, maybe one of the best the league's ever seen,’” Stienburg recalls Greenwood telling him. “And he told me about this kid, and said he's a late bloomer. And he went on and on. Everything just checked out.”
The conversation reminded him of his son, Matt — though he’s now playing professional hockey and bouncing between the NHL and American Hockey League, Matt was a “late bloomer” in his father’s eyes. When he was getting in contact with Cournoyer for the prospect of drafting him to Seattle, Stienburg couldn’t help but think of the one place that he thought changed everything for his son: Cornell.
“Everything I heard about this kid told me to believe he’s a late bloomer. I said, ‘I think this kid should invest in himself and not go to a scholarship school,’” Stienburg said. “‘I think he should shoot for some place like Cornell.’”
Stienburg watched his son play at Cornell for four years. He identified the Red’s stingy defensive style as being a prime system for goaltenders. Cornell has produced countless All-Americans between the pipes, from Ian Shane ’25 to Matthew Galajda ’21 to the legendary Ken Dryden ’69.
He called then-head coach Mike Schafer ’86 — who had coached Stienburg’s son — and asked if he was looking for a goalie.
“I didn't want to get into that side show of saying, ‘kid, if you don't go there, you should go here.’ It looks like I'm dictating and influencing them,” Stienburg said. “I just said, ‘if this kid's willing to call me and wants to talk, my son went to Cornell. He was a late bloomer.”
Stienburg offered himself up as a resource, as well as the now-graduated Matt.
In a few months, Cournoyer was Cornell-bound.
“I don't know how much influence I had to tell you the truth,” Stienburg said with a laugh. “But I'm certainly committed to being wind at Cornell's back. I feel I'm indebted to them, and I know my son does too.”
Cournoyer’s commitment to Cornell wouldn’t have been possible last year, or the year before that, or anytime before Nov. 7, 2024. That’s when the NCAA Division I Council voted to reverse a longstanding rule that barred Canadian Hockey League players — or those who play in the QMJHL, Western Hockey League or Ontario Hockey League — from having NCAA eligibility.
The decision broke a dam in the hockey world. Soon enough, many top NHL prospects that had played in the CHL — players that had never considered going to college — were now given the opportunity to play NCAA hockey, and they were taking it.
For Cournoyer, though, that was always the dream.
“I always wanted to go college since I was a kid,” Cournoyer said. “But I [thought] it wasn’t gonna happen because they're not recruiting [a] Junior A player. But when the rule changed, I think it kind of helped me after my second half in Cape Breton.”
Cournoyer visited Cornell after his stellar season in Cape Breton came to a close. He had fielded calls from head coach Casey Jones ’90 all throughout the winter, and had met associate head coach Sean Flanagan at a showcase in Montréal.
Stepping onto campus is what solidified everything.
“I didn't even come for a game. … I just fell in love with the campus and the people here and the culture too,” Cournoyer said. “It was a no-brainer for me to come here.”
There was another predicament lying ahead of both Cournoyer and the rest of the Cornell coaching staff — at 19 years old, Cournoyer had one more year of eligibility left to play in the QMJHL. He would either use that year to get some more games under his belt before transitioning to college, or head to Cornell straight away.
With the new rule-change also came alterations to how NHL draft picks’ rights work. With so much change in eligibility rules, the NHL standardized these players’ rights to last four years — meaning that teams that draft prospects own the rights to sign that player for four years, no matter what route that player takes for his development.
If Cournoyer had gone back to the QMJHL, that would’ve been year one. Year four would then conclude after his junior year — meaning that Montréal would need to sign him then or forfeit the rights to do so, leaving Cournoyer one year short of getting his degree.
“I'm trying to play pro, obviously. But even when guys play pro their whole life — especially goalies. — at 35, 40 [you] get to a point where your body is over,” Cournoyer said. “I could, like, sit on my couch and just do nothing for the rest of my life. But, after hockey, I want to do something. Even if I get to play until 40 — which, obviously, it's my dream — I still want to have something to do after, you know?”
The travel schedule in the QMJHL is not to be taken lightly — particularly for Cape Breton, the furthest-removed team from the rest of the league. Eagles players are crammed in a bus for goliath road trips that can last up to 25 hours.
At Cornell, the longest bus trip he’ll have to make is the six-hour ride to Harvard and Dartmouth.
“Playing 50 games in Cape Breton — you get a lot of playing time, but for my body, for my development is, you know, obviously it's better here,” Cournoyer said. “I have school. I have, like, coaches and everyone here to help me out. [It is the] best way possible to develop myself. We’ve got all these facilities, and we’ve got [assistant strength & conditioning coach] Mike [Missen] in the gym. Like I said, for me it was a no-brainer.”
Cournoyer, a communication major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has thus far acclimated well to Cornell. Senior forward Sean Donaldson helped him with his schedule, and he’s joined by 13 other newcomers to help with that adjustment.
One year ago, Cournoyer was playing Junior A hockey. His only exposure to the Montréal Canadiens organization was through watching games as a fan. He watched NCAA hockey facility tour videos on YouTube, dreaming of one day heading down to the U.S. and — down the road — playing in the NHL.
Now, he’s at Cornell and drafted by his hometown team.
He’s getting to do something that he had never deemed possible.
“[The CHL rule-change] is gonna give guys like me a chance to get top-tier education and development in terms of hockey,” Cournoyer said. “It’s going to change a lot in the next five years. But I think it's just a great thing for CHL players, and for everyone. It's going to make all the leagues just better in general.”
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
