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There are four Team Canada Olympic hockey players on PWHL Vancouver's roster

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
|
Jun 10 2025, 11:10 pm
There are four Team Canada Olympic hockey players on PWHL Vancouver's roster
Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY Sports

PWHL Vancouver has been busy lately.

After adding five players last week during an exclusive signing window, both Vancouver and Seattle added another eight players during Monday’s expansion draft.

Vancouver now has 12 players on its roster, which includes four members of Canada’s Olympic gold medal-winning team at Beijing 2022: Sarah Nurse, Claire Thompson, Ashton Bell, and Emerance Maschmeyer.

Two others, Jenn Gardiner and Sophie Jaques, are good bets to represent Canada at next year’s Olympics, given they wore the maple leaf at the most recent IIHF Women’s World Championship.

Gardiner, a 23-year-old forward from Surrey, gives the team some B.C. content. She finished behind only Team Canada teammate Marie-Philip Poulin in scoring at the World Championship with 10 points in seven games.

Nurse was the leading scorer at the 2022 Olympics, with 18 points in seven games. Thompson, meanwhile, was the tournament’s top-scoring defender with 13 points in seven games).

PWHL Vancouver roster

Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey appeared to raid the Minnesota Frost, adding four players from the PWHL championship team in the last week. Other players came from Toronto (2), Montreal (2), Ottawa (2), New York (1), and Boston (1).

Forwards

  • Sarah Nurse (Toronto)
  • Jenn Gardiner (Montreal)
  • Brooke McQuigge (Minnesota)
  • Abby Boreen (Montreal)
  • Izzy Daniel (Toronto)
  • Gabby Rosenthal (New York)
  • Denisa Krizova (Minnesota)

Defenders

  • Claire Thompson (Minnesota)
  • Sophie Jaques (Minnesota)
  • Ashton Bell (Ottawa)
  • Sydney Bard (Boston)

Goaltender

  • Emerance Maschmeyer (Ottawa)

“We definitely have an identity. I think with the five pre-signings (Nurse, Gardiner, Thompson, Jaques, Maschmeyer), we made a strong statement and then we went with a lot of depth [in the expansion draft],” said Gardner Morey.

“I just hope the Vancouver fans are excited for because I think they’re going to see a really special product on the ice.”

Vancouver’s first pro women’s hockey team will make its PWHL debut this fall, with games being played at the Pacific Coliseum. PWHL Vancouver plans to have a team name picked out by then, to go with previously announced team colours: Pacific blue and cream.

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