Claude Giroux

Lore & Background

Before playing in the NHL, Giroux played his major junior career with the Gatineau Olympiques of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), where he helped the team win a 2008 President's Cup and earned the Guy Lafleur Trophy as the 2008 playoff MVP. Internationally, he won a gold medal with Team Canada in the 2008 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. Giroux made his debut with the Flyers in February 2008 and joined the roster full-time midway through the 2008–09 season. In 2011, after the trades of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, Giroux took over the role of the club's first-line centre. He was the club's top point-scorer for seven seasons. In 2012 and 2014, he finished third in the league in point scoring. In 2018, he finished second in the league with 102 points, behind only Connor McDavid.

Reader's Guide

Giroux was born on January 12, 1988, in Hearst, Ontario, a Francophone town, and is fluent in both English and French. He is the son of Raymond and Nicole Giroux, and has one sister named Isabelle. Giroux's favourite hockey player growing up was Pavel Bure. In mid 2002, at the age of 14, Giroux and his family moved to Ottawa, Ontario, where he attended Béatrice-Desloges High School in the suburban community of Orléans, but graduated in 12th grade at Minto French Catholic Highschool due to the school schedule being flexible around his busy hockey schedule.

While living in Orléans, Giroux played Major Bantam AA and Minor Midget AA hockey for the Cumberland Barons, and was the club's leading scorer in the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons. After being passed over in the 2004 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) draft, Giroux played for the Cumberland Grads during the 2004–05 season at age 16. Despite missing most of the season after contracting mononucleosis, Giroux scored 40 points in 48 games and was named the Central Junior A Hockey League (CJHL)'s Rookie of the Year.