Long Overdue

In a move that should surprise no one, Hockey Canada announced today that Canadian national women's team general manager Gina Kingsbury and head coach Troy Ryan will not return to continue their work with the national women's program. I have nothing against Kingsbury or Ryan personally, but it was hard to understand their personnel choices at the Milano-Cortina Olympics and the games leading up to the Olympics. Yes, they still brought home the second-best medal from the event, but it was hard to watch an older, slower team do everything they could to prevent losses rather than earning wins. Clearly, something had to give.

While there's no denying that Canada's veteran players have an immense amount of talent, it was hard watching the younger, faster Americans dismantle the Canadian squad in the Olympic preliminary round. Yes, Canada looked much better in the gold medal game when these two teams met a second time, but result was identical in that the Americans were celebrating and the Canadians were sobbing.

There has been a quiet chorus for years that has demanded that Hockey Canada should start looking at incorporating younger players into international competitions, but the leadership has always resisted that idea. With Canada's core players moving into the sunsets of their careers, it became more prominent with all of the young talent that Team USA was showcasing at each event. No one will deny that Marie-Philip Poulin and Hilary Knight are still big names, but the likes of Taylor Heise, Caroline Harvey, Hannah Bilka, and Laila Edwards stole the show in Italy. Canada had no answer for them.

In comments made today, Kingsbury indicated that it was time for someone else to step in and push Canada higher. She told reporters, "I'm good with the transition. I'm ready for it. It's time for someone to look at the landscape that has shifted in women's hockey and set out their own vision on what that could look like for the future."

Troy Ryan had already indicated in February that he was stepping down from his coaching position with the team, stating, "I think it's time for someone else to run with it and take it to new heights."

With both Kingsbury and Ryan moving on from their posts, this could open the door for a changing of the guard, so to speak, when it comes to Canada's roster. Players like Sarah Fillier, Emma Maltais, Daryl Watts, Jenn Gardiner, Sophie Jacques, Kati Tabin, and Julia Gosling could all play bigger roles moving forward while adding the likes of Nicole Gosling, Sarah Wozniewicz, Rebecca Leslie, Danielle Serdachny, and Raygan Kirk would all continue pushing the youth movement while challenging Canadian veterans for roster spots.

Let's not forget that all of Marie-Philip Poulin (34), Natalie Spooner (35), Brianne Jenner (34), and Jocelyne Larocque (37) are deep into Hall-of-Fame careers already while Laura Stacey (32), Renata Fast (31), Sarah Nurse (31), Erin Ambrose (32), Emerence Maschmeyer (32) and Ann-Renee Desbiens (32) likely only have one more Olympic run in them. When you consider that's nearly half the current roster, we're overdue in bringing in the next wave of players into the mix.

With four more teams being added to the PWHL next season, there will be lots of opportunity to see amazing young women show off their skills over the next few years if they choose to play professionally. Jade Iginla, Sara Manness, Kahlen Lamarche, Jocelyn Amos, Stryker Zablocki, and Chloe Primerano are just a handful of dynamic Canadians playing at the NCAA level, and Hockey Canada would be wise to keep an eye on U SPORTS when it comes to players like Grace Elliott, Courtney Kollman, Jessymaude Drapeau, and Gabrielle Santerre. There's an immense amount of Canadian talent playing across the planet. All Hockey Canada has to do is look for it.

That's the part that I never understood about Kingsbury and Ryan - they never seemed to look beyond the NCAA. Kingsbury had a handful of U SPORTS players in the lineup for the Calgary Inferno every game in the CWHL while Ryan coached the Dalhouse University Tigers women's program. Both of them are very aware that not all the best players play south of the border, but it's almost as if they forgot that some of Canada's best players learned the game here at home.

Who, you ask? Caroline Ouelette spent one year at Concordia University. Charline Labonte, Ann-Sophie Bettez, Catherine Ward, Kim St-Pierre, and Melodie Daoust all skated for McGill University. Brigette Lacquette spent a season with the University of Manitoba. Hayley Wickenheiser, Colleen Sostorics, and Danielle Goyette played with the University of Calgary. Vicky Sunohara and Jayna Hefford played for the University of Toronto. Delaney Collins played with both Concordia and Alberta. And Gina Kingsbury played with eight of these players mentioned above at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy.

I want to be clear that this isn't about Hockey Canada's continued ignorance of U SPORTS, but it is about expanding the talent pool as far as one can when it comes to finding good, effective players. The preceding paragraph were examples of players that were key to Canada's dominance for so long which was a credit to Canada looking under every stone for good players. Canada needs to start doing that again by tapping into the NCAA, U SPORTS, and Europe where good, young, fast players would go through a wall to wear the maple leaf.

A new general manager and a new head coach is a fresh start for the Canadian women's program that was colloquially getting long in the tooth. We can still honour these long-serving women for their contributions, but Hockey Canada has to be forward thinking when it comes to putting the best team on the ice. Leaving younger players at home isn't the way to do that, so here's hoping that changes.

My hope is that we won't see the same dozen names in the running for these two positions as Hockey Canada begins its searches, but there's no denying that changes were long overdue for this program.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!