Sarah Nurse ready to make waves with new PWHL team in Vancouver
The Hamilton hockey player was unaccustomed to being just a few feet away from ocean waters, with no rails or safety barriers in sight.
But it didn't take long for the best-known player on the roster of Vancouver's new Professional Women's Hockey League team to find her footing.
Within half an hour, Canada's most valuable player in the 2022 Olympic women's hockey tournament in Beijing had her hands on the vessel's wheel — steering the rainbow-hued commuter ferry through the busy waters of False Creek during a Friday sightseeing tour ahead of a holiday weekend.
Nurse has never been shy about navigating uncharted waters.
In 2023, she became the first female player ever to grace the cover of EA Sports' NHL video game.
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Then, as one of five members of the executive board of the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association, she helped draft the PWHL's first collective bargaining agreement and bring the league to life.
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PWHL draft and women's sports
Now, after just two years, the PWHL has expanded to eight teams and stretched its footprint west with new franchises in Vancouver and Seattle.
After she was left unprotected by the Toronto Sceptres in June's expansion draft, Nurse made the decision to become a part of another new thing and signed a one-year contract as a free agent.
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'The opportunity for me to be able to help start an expansion franchise in a market that really has never had women's hockey before was really cool for me,' Nurse said. 'I haven't spent a lot of time in the city, but I've always admired it from afar. I don't know why I said this, but I was like, 'If I don't live in Toronto, I think Vancouver would be the place that I lived in.' So, unintentionally manifested this, I guess.'
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The roster-building process for the PWHL's expansion squads was designed to preserve the league's strong parity.
When the dust settled, Vancouver's roster included Nurse's Olympic teammates Emerance Maschmeyer and Claire Thompson, former Toronto teammates Izzy Daniel and North Vancouver's Hannah Miller, and Finnish hockey legend Michelle Karvinen.
Brian Idalski, whose long history in the women's game includes coaching Miller, Karvinen and Vancouver forward Michela Cava in the Russian women's league, will be behind the bench.
After analyzing the roster assembled by general manager Cara Gardner Morey, Nurse was optimistic about her new team's prospects.
'I'm excited to see how the pieces are going to fall together,' she said. 'We want to be a competitor. How amazing would it be to bring home a Walter Cup in Year 1? I think that's definitely the goal whenever you start a hockey season.'
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PWHL announce Vancouver expansion team for 2025-2026 season
Nurse was joined on her ferry excursion by Vancouver teammates Kristen Campbell and Jenn Gardiner.
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Campbell was named the PWHL's goalie of the year with Toronto in 2024 and was acquired by Vancouver in a draft-day trade. Gardiner of nearby Cloverdale, B.C., signed a one-year, free-agent contract after she was a finalist for rookie of the year with the Montreal Victoire.
Despite her success in Montreal, Gardiner couldn't resist returning to her hometown after witnessing the market's enthusiasm for PWHL hockey.
She played in front of 19,038 raucous fans at a sold-out Rogers Arena when the Victoire beat the Sceptres 4-2 in January's Takeover Tour game.
'I couldn't have chosen a better city for my first year in that in the league last year,' Gardiner said. 'It was really nice that my teammates were very supportive of me going back home to play. They know how much the game on January eighth meant to me, and growing the game out in B.C.'
PWHL Vancouver hits the ice this fall at the Pacific Coliseum on the PNE grounds. The arena, which opened in 1968, hasn't been home to a hockey team since the Western Hockey League's Vancouver Giants moved to Langley in 2016.
Extensive renovations are currently underway at both the Coliseum and next door at the Agrodome, which will serve as the team's practice facility.
When complete, Vancouver will be the only PWHL team to hold primary-tenant status at its home arena, which offers business and marketing advantages.
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The schedule for the PWHL's third year has not yet been released, but season-ticket packages for Vancouver were on sale.
Each team played 30 games starting Nov. 30 last season.
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