How hard work on family farm led Emerance Maschmeyer to starting role with PWHL Ottawa
CBC
Erick Robertson remembers nine-year-old Emerance Maschmeyer setting a lofty goal for herself.
She wasn't even in high school yet, but Maschmeyer knew she wanted to play hockey for Harvard University.
"I've never had a nine year old ever have that as a goal or that much foresight or looking into the future," said Robertson, who runs Level Up Goaltending in Edmonton and coached Maschmeyer for years.
The Ivy League is exactly where Maschmeyer found herself a decade later, eventually breaking the Harvard women's hockey program's saves record, which she still holds.
But she didn't stop there. Next was an Olympic gold medal, a goal Maschmeyer achieved in 2022 after being cut from the 2018 roster.
Long the backup to Ann-Renée Desbiens on Team Canada, 29-year-old Maschmeyer now has the chance to chart her own path as the starting goaltender with Ottawa in the new Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
When Ottawa had the chance to sign three free agents ahead of the league's inaugural draft, Maschmeyer was one of them.
On that day in September, when three-year deals were announced for Maschmeyer and forwards Emily Clark and Brianne Jenner, Ottawa GM Mike Hirshfeld said the team believes Maschmeyer's best years in the net are ahead of her. But that's not the only reason why the team used one of its slots on her.
"We talked to a lot of people and they raved about her personality, they raved about her as a teammate and as a leader and again, that was critically important for us," Hirshfeld said in September.
Ottawa is the next chapter in a career built on hard work, and it all started on a big grain farm just outside Bruderheim, Alta.
About 1,300 people live in the small, tight-knit community outside Edmonton near where Maschmeyer grew up with her four siblings.
She remembers two seasons in Bruderheim: hockey season and farming season.
The Maschmeyer kids approached both with a work ethic. In the winter, they spent hours skating on a homemade rink on the farm. Their father designed a training program for them.
One night, her father told her she had to stay on the rink until she learned how to lift the puck while shooting. She tried and tried, but couldn't figure it out. Her siblings gathered around Maschmeyer, the fourth youngest, to show her how to do it.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.
Canada’s ski mountaineering athletes have their Olympic dreams on the line this weekend at a World Cup event in Solitude, Utah.
Goalie Carter Hart, one of five 2018 Canada world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault in July, will make his first NHL appearance in nearly two years when he starts in goal Tuesday night for the Vegas Golden Knights, who host Chicago.
The Canadian women’s hockey team will bring back plenty of familiar faces for its final pre-Olympic games in Edmonton next week.
Ottawa Charge head coach Carla MacLeod has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the team announced Sunday.