The Rundown - Going Pro

Today, The Rundown is all about the professional women's hockey players who once called Canada West home. There are a vast number of women working in all sorts of fields across the planet after having played Canada West hockey, but there are a handful who are still playing the game today in a professional manner. These women aren't making millions of dollars by any means, but they are still living out a dream where they're being paid to play the game they love or attempting to make that dream happen. In either case, I'm going to guess there are a lot more women who suited up for Canada West teams playing professionally than you might think! Let's take a look at who is playing where this week on The Rundown!

As part of the fun in seeing these women do their thing on the professional stage, I'll pull highlights from where ever I can in order for you to see these women in action. Not everyone has highlights since some leagues are stuck in the stone age, but I've done my best in digging up highlights from this season for you to enjoy!

Name	League	Team	Country
Celine Tardif	SDHL	Leksands IF	Sweden
Kelly Murray	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden
Hannah Clayton-Carroll	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden
Mathea Fischer	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden
Emily Costales	ZhHL	KRS Vanke Rays	China

UBC has three players playing together on SDE in Sweden which, if you scroll through the rest of the teams, seems like a bit of a Canada West All-Star team in the Swedish Women's League. That being said, Celine Tardif is also over there as a member of Leksands IF, and Emily Costales may be playing for Team China at the Olympics after suiting up for the Rays in the Russian ZhHL. Needless to say, UBC is doing a good job at graduating players into professional leagues.

Hannah Clayton-Carroll cleans up the rebound off the Kelly Murray shot in front of the net as the two former UBC Thunderbirds open the scoring on the power-play for SDE over MoDo on December 4, 2021!

Mathea Fischer forces the turnover before taking the pass and finishing off the breakaway for a beautiful effort. How many times did we see that in Canada West? Hint: many.

Name	League	Team	Country
Alex Poznikoff	PWHPA	Calgary/Team Scotiabank	Canada
Autumn MacDougall	PHF	Buffalo Beauts	USA
Kennedy Ganser	PHF	Buffalo Beauts	USA
Lindsey Post	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden
Megan Eady	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden
Alex Gowie	EWHL	MAC Budapest	Hungary

There's an explanation needed here because Alex Gowie actually played for the University of Calgary before going to Hungary to play there where she gained citizenship to play for the country internationally. She returned to Canada after a few years, though, and finished her studies at the University of Alberta. For clarity's sake, players will be listed with the school they graduate from in order to prevent confusion. Beyond that, both MacDougall and Ganser were drafted by the Beauts into the PHF (formerly the NWHL), Alex Poznikoff scored her first PWHPA goal last month, and both Lindsey Post and Megan Eady are part of that SDE/Canada West All-Star team in Sweden.

Alex Poznikoff beats Erica Howe up high! Note the assist from former Bisons defender Brigitte Lacquette who played one season with Manitoba before graduating from Minnesota-Duluth!


A number of Autumn MacDougall's goals in the PHF in one nice clip.


It felt like Canada West all over again on December 4, 2021 when Lindsey Post absolutely robbed MoDo's Jaycee Magwood on the backhand! I seem to recall her flashing the leather like that a lot!

Name	League	Team	Country
Moeko Fujimoto	Smile League	Toyota Cygnus	Japan
Erin McLean	EWHL	Aisulu Almaty	Kazakhstan

Honestly, finding any information on Fujimoto was harder than one could imagine, but she is still playing in Japan. Erin McLean actually earned her citizenship in Kazakhstan where she now competes for the country internationally.

Unfortunately, highlights for either player seem to be non-existent.

Name	League	Team	Country
Kelsey Roberts	PWHPA	Calgary/Team Scotiabank	Canada
Iya Gavrilova	PWHPA	Calgary/Team Scotiabank	Canada
Megan Grenon	PWHPA	Calgary/Team Scotiabank	Canada
Alexandra Vafina	ZhHL	Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg	Russia
Laine Grace	EWHL	DEC Salzburg Eagles	Austria

Kelsey Roberts had an outstanding showing at the PWHPA event last month as she showed why she was the Canada West Player of the Year in 2020. Gavrilova has been a star since her time with the Dinos, and it hasn't stopped in her professional hockey life. Megan Grenon may not be a household name, but she was a very defender for the Dinos program. Alexandra "Sasha" Vafina is still one of the best Russian players suiting up in her homeland with St. Petersburg. Laine Grace was a solid defender for the Dinos as well, and she's playing regularly in Salzburg.

Kelsey Roberts makes a ridiculous save in the PWHPA game on December 18 as she goes post-to-post laterally. Unreal!

Iya Gavrilova shows off her hands as she opens the scoring in the PWHPA game on December 19, beating Erica Howe.

Check out the great feed from Alexandra Vafina (#29) to teammate Polina Bolgareva for the goal in this highlight!

Name	League	Team	Country
Kaitlin Willoughby	PWHPA	Calgary/Team Scotiabank	Canada
Danielle Stone	SDHL	HV71	Sweden

I honestly thought there would be more former Huskies playing professionally around the globe, but finding them has been harder than I'd like to admit. Kaitlin Willoughby is still bringing amazing skills to the PWHPA ice when she's on it, and Danielle Stone continues to be an excellent scorer for HV71 in Sweden.

Kaitlin Willoughby earns an assist on Alex Poznikoff's goal. Watch for #17 in the celebration after the goal!

Check out the ridiculous hand-eye coordination from Danielle Stone on this deflection in the high-slot for HV71 against Lulea.

Name	League	Team	Country
Jaycee Magwood	SDHL	MoDo	Sweden
Martina Maskova	Extraliga Zen	HC Banik Pribram	Czechia

Jaycee Magwood is doing in Sweden what she did here in Canada in terms of being a consistent scorer. Martina Maskova returned home to Czechia after spending a couple of seasons in Regina, and she's now playing for Pribram's Extraliga team some 45 minutes southwest of Prague.

Watch this individual effort that Jaycee Magwood puts on in overtime to help MoDo defeat HV71. Like she did in Regina, this is a highlight-reel goal that features a toe-drag around a defender and a determination to score that is all too familiar from Jaycee Magwood!

Name	League	Team	Country
Becca King	PWHPA	Toronto - Team Sonnet	Canada
Erica Rieder	SDHL	MoDo	Sweden
Alexandra Anderson	SDHL	SDE Hockey	Sweden

Again, I thought there might be more Bisons out there, but a number of the women who had been playing professionally have since transitioned into their professional lives. That being said, Becca King is still suiting up for the PWHPA after playing with the Markham Thunder in the CWHL. Erica Rieder has been a solid defender for MoDo since making the jump to Sweden. Alex Anderson was playing defence with SDE before moving to forward for the club.

Erica Rieder jumps up into the high slot area, and she buries a goal against Djurgarden on December 28 to open the scoring for MoDo!

Alex Anderson is the finisher on this tic-tac-toe play by SDE against Lulea after the turnover on December 5, 2021!

Name	League	Team	Country
Maddy Noonan	DamEttan	Södertälje SK	Sweden

The former Pronghorns recruit made the jump to Sweden's second-highest women's division after the University of Lethbridge folded their hockey program, and Maddy Noonan hasn't looked back as she's having another outstanding season for Södertälje.

Highlights for some of the upper European leagues are hard enough to come by, so finding a second-division highlight reel for Maddy Noonan wasn't happening despite my best efforts.

The Last Word

There have been a number of other players who have played in leagues across the world as well. UBC's Tatiana Rafter was part of the ZhHL in Russia and part of the NWHL here in North America. Mount Royal's Kennedy Bozek played in the EWHL. Manitoba's Maggie Litchfield-Medd was a high-scoring forward in the SDHL. All three, along with countless others, have decided to follow their professional, non-hockey lives at this point, but this is why support at the Canada West level matters: these women deserve to follow their hockey dreams as much they're encouraged to follow their academic ones.

I get that not every woman is seeking a professional hockey career at the end of the university career, but it's a door that shouldn't be closed simply because there are very few opportunities to do so. If players choose to follow their academic pursuits by staying in school or by venturing out into employment, that should be their choice as opposed to being their ONLY choice right now. We need to start finding a way to give women better opportunities to play this game at high levels once they've used up their university eligibility.

As shown above, there are a pile of women doing amazing things on the ice, and I really hope that we see another wave of talented, smart women join them with names like Anna Purschke, Bailee Bourassa, Lauren Warkentin, and Chantal Ricker all set to close the book on their storied university careers. Losing some of this incredible hockey talent simply because the option to play hockey isn't available is a travesty that we really need to correct sooner than later.

With Bailee Bourassa already working as a nurse in Saskatoon, it would seem likely that she's going to choose her field of study over the option to play hockey. I don't fault her for that as she's very good at what she does, but I wish that she had the option to choose whether she wanted to play hockey for a few more years at the professional level or go into nursing full-time.

What I do know is that I feel pretty lucky that I've been exposed to some of the best women's hockey players on the planet while covering Canada West hockey over the last decade, and I'm truly grateful for having had that experience and making friendships with some of the women that played. I can honestly say that I'm a fan of the women mentioned above regardless of their association to rival schools, and seeing them take their incredible skill that I got to watch for so long to the next level is why we need to find a way to create a professional league for these women.

If you haven't seen these women play, my advice would be to correct that oversight in the second half of the Canada West season. If you have watched them play and haven't been impressed, give them another chance. With more people supporting university women's hockey and minor-league girls' hockey, the rise in fans will be noticed by those who curate this game. If they see more and more people supporting the women, it will be hard for them to ignore the obvious: it's time for a professional league for the women who dream of more.

With that, I'll see you at the games in 2022!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!