PWHL: Carla MacLeod a key connector for both Ottawa and international hockey
With the PWHL coming to Detroit, let's spend some time writing about the new league and a key person involved this weekend.
I have a hard time remembering the last time I bought tickets for myself to a hockey game.
By the nature of my job, I’m typically attending a game on the media list or with a press pass.
And even times I’ve sat in the stands, for example I like to bring the kid with me to NTDP games, I’ve technically been there watching/observing with work purposes.
That’s why it was meaningful for me to buy tickets to Saturday’s neutral site PWHL game between Ottawa and Boston at Little Caesars Arena.
See, I have a 5-year-old daughter who is starting to play hockey and has pointed out before that she typically only gets to see boys play hockey on the TV. Telling her that we bought tickets to see a girls hockey game on Saturday has been thrilling, she’s brought it up multiple times this week on the walk to school.
Moral of the story, representation matters, and instead of watching from the press box at LCA on Saturday I’ll be sitting with an actual ticket and taking it in as a fan with my kids.
Also, part of representation mattering comes in the media realm. Which is why I wanted to write a couple things here at Shap Shots about the league while it is taking up weekend residence in Detroit.
And, let’s be honest, the PWHL is probably much more fun to read about right now then what’s happened this week with the Detroit Red Wings or Dallas Stars (the two largest fan audiences at this site).
Last summer I went to a coaches clinic hosted by The Coaches Site in Ann Arbor.
Carla MacLeod was one of the presenters, at the time she was the head coach at the University of Calgary and the Czechia Women’s National Team.
She has since been named the coach of PWHL Ottawa, and will be one of the two head coaches in the game in Detroit on Saturday.
MacLeod gave a 30 minute presentation on team building, particularly focused on work she’s done with Czechia.
Here is a snippet of her presentation, that TCS put on YouTube.
Since she was named the head coach of Czechia the results have been remarkable, winning the bronze medal at both the 2022 and 2023 world championships — the first ever for Czechia in women’s competition.
Czechia is currently ranked fifth in the IIHF World ranking, the highest it’s ever been, behind Canada, United States, Switzerland, and Finland.
One of the things that stood out to be about MacLeod from her presentation last summer was how well she managed expectations and understood the curve every country outside USA and Canada have to battle up in women’s international hockey.
And while the results against those top powers haven’t happened yet, Czechia was at least competitive against both Canada and USA in the first period in the group stage worlds in 2023.
It’s also fitting that PWHL Ottawa has strong Czech representation in its inaugural season.
Katerina Mrazova leads the team with 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in 16 games. That includes a trio of assists on Sunday in a 4-2 win against Montreal and a pair of goals last Tuesday against Minnesota.
Czech defender Aneta Tejralová also plays for Ottawa and typically logs close to 23 minutes per game on the blue line.
MacLeod has also been an assistant coach for the Japanese national team in addition to her work with Hockey Canada. While we often talk about the growth of women’s hockey in North America, she’s pretty uniquely qualified to talk about the growth of international game across three continents.
“I think there’s a diversity to how the game is played around the world, and you see different strengths and different styles, and I think it’s something we’ve been trying to sort of blend here in Ottawa,” MacLeod said. “It’s been such a short runway here, but it’s such a nice option here to see the best players in the world are looking at this league as the best place to play.”
“We can’t undervalue what this does in their home country, we get text messages all the time from people in Czech who say they’re watching and so it’s growing the game,” MacLeod added. “So it’s growing the game around the world and that’s a pretty great thing our league can do.”
MacLeod said her early experiences with Japan gave her a better insight into the quality of hockey around the world, not just in North America. And while the PWHL is aiming for the best league in the world title, she said a transfer of players both to and from European leagues is going to help the overall women’s game.
MacLeod downplays part of her role in this, but she’s one of the connectors that better help the hockey world in this sense.
And this month is a perfect example of that. While MacLeod is in a playoff battle with PWHL Ottawa, she’s also prepping for the 2024 IIHF Worlds that will be held April 3 to 14 in Utica, New York.
It’s a similar juggling act to what David Carle handled this season before the 2024 World Junior Championship, coaching Denver and the United States under-20 team at the same time.
Like Carle told me in December, MacLeod said right now it’s a balancing act. She’s focused on winning games with Ottawa, getting over the playoff cut line, but also still monitoring and thinking about how to best attack the world championships with Czechia.