Canada’s collegians are growing up and going for gold
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Team Canada boasts three NCAA players on its 2023 roster as it aims for a third consecutive gold medal at the IIHF Women’s World Hockey Championship in Brampton, Ont.
Forward Emma Maltais has just wrapped up her career at Ohio State, while Princeton’s Sarah Fillier and Colgate’s Danielle Serdachny will play one more season in the NCAA.
From Serdachny seeking her first worlds gold, to Fillier and Maltais looking to build upon their international success, here’s a look at Canada’s youngest players:
Sarah Fillier - Princeton
Fillier has taken the hockey world by storm the past two years with dominant performances on the biggest stages the sport has to offer.
She had three goals and six points in seven games at the 2021 worlds to help Canada capture gold for the first time in nearly a decade. Fillier kicked it up a notch at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, scoring eight goals and 11 points in seven games. She added five goals and 11 points in seven games at the 2022 worlds, earning a tournament All-Star team nod and being named one of the top three players on the team.
Fillier returned to Princeton in 2022-23 after missing the last two college seasons due to COVID-19 wiping out the Ivy League season in 2020-21 and then centralizing with Team Canada in 2021-22.
Princeton head coach Cara Morey said she sees a notable difference in her star player after two years away.
“Obviously [she] was a completely different person emotionally and mentally just at that developmental stage of her life,” Morey said of Fillier. “She had been living with grown women and some of her teammates are mothers, so a very different version from the 18-year-old that came on campus four years ago.”
A phenom from a young age, Fillier has delivered on the hype in college, winning the 2019 National Rookie of the Year and being named a two-time Patty Kazmaier finalist. Morey described the challenge of coaching a player of Fillier’s calibre as “surprisingly hard.”
“You really don’t want to over-coach it,” said Morey. “Because she sees the game differently than I see the game. That’s what makes her one of the best players in the world, so I have to be careful in that I talk to her more about what she’s seeing so I can understand her decision[s].
“The best part is I never have to coach for effort and never have to coach her commitment. The harder part is figuring out how to play the game at her level and understanding when I need to hold her accountable for her habits and when it’s actually a read for the right reasons.”
Team Canada defender Claire Thompson, who played with Fillier at Princeton for two seasons and now with the national team, counts the Georgetown, Ont., product as one of her best friends and has seen her grow on and off the ice. Fillier is known as a prolific goal-scorer, but Thompson cites her play on the other side of the puck as an underrated aspect of her game.
“She’s a centre but I think people may not appreciate how effective and efficient she is at supporting the puck low and finding open space for breakout passes and supporting off the puck,” Thompson said. “She makes it really easy for defence to get the puck moving offensively.
“I think that maybe to the untrained eye people may not realize that, but she is, I think, one of the best at that in the D zone.”
Team Canada head coach Troy Ryan has coached Fillier at various levels of Hockey Canada programs since she was a teenager. Despite being only 22, Ryan says she anchors the team’s second line and is a big piece of the power play. He cites the influence of captain Marie-Philip Poulin as an important figure for Fillier.
“I remember a few instances [in practices] where Poulin would skip a player in line to match up against Sarah, just to go head to head against [her]. I think both of them were sort of always up for that type of passion, competitiveness,” he said. “You’ve got someone like Poulin who has obviously gone through a lot of what Sarah is trying to go through now as a player, but they’re completely different people and players.
“Sarah is very quiet, very humble, but there’s a fire and passion and grittiness to her that are behind the big smile that she always has and the easygoing mentality. There’s very few that have that type of level of skill but there’s very few that have that passion as well.”
Emma Maltais – Ohio State
Joining Fillier as a staple on the national team in the past two years is Maltais, who just finished her final NCAA season at Ohio State.
Earning her Bachelor of Sciences in 2021, Maltais will get her Masters in Bioethics/Medical Ethics this summer if she completes her capstone project. Part of her academic experience included interning at the campus hospital, which included shadowing in the neurology department as well as with a physical therapist.
She admits it was an adjustment returning to life as a student-athlete after a year away centralizing with the national team.
“I think it was more just an adjustment to go from, I was a captain here [at Ohio State] and then I left, and I was the youngest on the team, trying to figure that out and then I had to come back and lead the team again,” said Maltais.
Ryan describes the 23-year-old forward as a ball of energy and said that her personality is key in helping the team stay loose in high-pressure situations.
“Someone like Emma knew what her best chance of making the Olympic team was and that’s what she set out to do. Instead of ‘I want to be a first liner in training,’ she was like ‘I need to bring energy, I can’t let my foot off the gas, I gotta be physical, I got to do all these things.’
“She did that, which gave her all the opportunities and experiences. And now what you’ll see is now that she’s got that foundation. I think you’ll see her slowly add more to her game and that’s what we’re kind of excited to see what that potentially looks like. But she’s someone that stepped up.”
Canada
While Maltais has primarily played an energy role in her time with the national time, she is ready to take on a bigger role.
“For me [it’s] understanding what I brought in the past and keeping that and using that as my strength but also adding things to my game and having the confidence to push for that.”
Thompson grew up playing against Maltais in minor hockey in Ontario, but they never played on the same team until joining forces on the national team.
“She was a competitor of mine for a number of years, and I always hated playing against her,” said Thompson. “She’s such a hard worker and such a difficult player to defend and play against. But I think through her time at Ohio State, and then with the national team last year when I was her teammate, I was really able to appreciate with her on my side. She really is a 200-foot player.
“Off the ice, she’s so much fun to be around. She always has so much energy and it’s so contagious.”
Danielle Serdachny – Colgate
Serdachny is the lone Canadian player making her worlds debut after parlaying a strong season at Colgate into an opportunity with the national team.
The Edmonton, Alta., product led the NCAA in scoring this season with 25 goals and 71 points in 40 games, her fourth at Colgate.
She made a big impression in her two games at the Rivalry Series, scoring the overtime winner in Game 5 against the Americans on a play where she got an odd-player break with Poulin.
Ryan says he was impressed that Serdachny, who switched from centre to right wing for the Rivalry Series, played out of position in a pressure-packed, must-win game against the Americans and had the confidence to shoot instead of passing to Poulin.
“Poulin gave her the game puck for scoring that goal,” recounts Ryan. “Serdachny looked off Poulin as kind of a decoy and shot it herself and Poulin laughed like ‘Here’s the game puck, great goal, thanks for looking me off,’ and we had a big laugh about it.”
Serdachny admits feeling nervous walking into the Canadian dressing room for the first time. She cites Julia Gosling, a forward who has made appearances with the senior national team, and Sarah Nurse as players who helped her out.
“I was roommates with Sarah Nurse, who was so welcoming to me, made me feel a part of the team right away,” said Serdachny. “That really helped make the transition up to that team easier. She was just such an easy person to talk to and ask any sort of question, which was special for me.”
Majoring in economics with a minor in film media, Serdachny also serves as captain for Colgate and has learned a lot about leadership.
“I [want] to allow people to be themselves but also lean on me and look up to me on and off the ice which I think is important,” she said.
“I would [also] say how important little interactions, whether that’s with teammates or people you meet or even opponents, those little interactions are in the long run both for the hockey seasons, for friendships.”