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Sources say Crowe’s new senior position will involve a more conventional business day, different from the 24/7 nature of the NHL Senators. Prior to joining the Senators, the 43-year-old Ottawa native articled with the accounting firm KPMG to obtain her chartered accountant’s designation in 1994.

It was while with KPMG that Crowe performed a routine audit of the Ottawa Senators. The client must have appreciated her work – because the Senators soon called and offered her a job.

Since 2009, when she was named to her current title as executive VP and CFO, Crowe has been part of the hockey club’s three-member executive team, alongside president Cyril Leeder and general manager Bryan Murray.

In the old boys world of the NHL, Crowe was a pioneer – not just a woman in a man’s game, but a young woman. She was 38 when she made her first appearance at an NHL Board of Governors meeting, representing the Senators as an alternate governor, surrounded by mostly grizzled owners and general managers.

That first meeting was an eye opener, not just for Crowe, but for the old boys, too, as she once explained to the Queen’s School of Business magazine (QSB). Crowe graduated from Queen’s University with a bachelor of commerce degree in 1993.

“I walked into the room, it was all men and me,” Crowe said. “And they were all looking at me as if to say, ‘What are you doing here?’ I’m sure they thought I was an assistant to Cyril Leeder, but now that they know my role, they understand that I do have a place at the table.”