It’s easy to see Cayla Barnes‘s introduction in front of a close-to-sell-out crowd at Place Bell for the Montreal Victoire’s home opener as inevitable. After all, she was the team’s first-round pick and has been on the United States senior national team since she was 18 years old and fresh out of high school.
In reality, it was anything but. Barnes has been in the women’s hockey spotlight for so long, it’s easy to forget her path. She was born and grew up in California. She’s listed as 5’2″, which makes her the shortest US defender to ever play for the country at the Olympics, along with Emily Matheson (née Pfalzer), and the shortest to play in more than one Games, per Elite Prospects. There’s the fact that when she made her Olympic debut in 2018, a fully professional hockey league like the PWHL didn’t even exist. If that path wasn’t enough, weeks before she was set to make her professional debut, she went hard into the boards facing Canada at the Rivalry Series, leaving her status for the season opener in serious doubt.
So when Barnes skated out for the first time as a professional with towels waving, lights flashing, and her family in attendance, the enormity of the moment wasn’t lost on her.
“I grew up in a non-hockey market. I’m short, and my parents didn’t play hockey or anything like that,” Barnes said. “I definitely got told that [I was too small to make it] once or twice, or a couple hundred times. You have to block out the noise and do you and now I’m here, so I’m just thankful to be here and thankful I didn’t listen.”
The injury looked so bad that anyone watching would not have expected Barnes to even be in consideration to play on Opening Night. A harmless-looking collision with Victoire captain Marie-Philip Poulin and Barnes both going for the loose puck. Barnes ended up going feet first into the boards, and would not play again in the Rivalry Series, and did not take part in a practice until after the team’s pre-season games.
Cayla Barnes goes hard into the boards after being bumped by MPP, I am not going to post the slower closeup replays. Hope it's not as bad as it looked pic.twitter.com/Iz4QqeIs1N
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) November 7, 2024
The news regarding the injury was positive almost immediately following it happening. What was feared as something that would take months to recover from ended up being shortened to weeks. It was, for all intents and purposes, a best case scenario.
”When it first happened, I was pretty scared, not going to lie,” Barnes said. “It was just a weird thing that happened, I went in really weird and in the moment I didn’t know the extent of what it was but definitely pleasantly surprised when a lot of my results came back overwhelmingly positive. Obviously I was going to be out for a little bit but nothing that would keep me out for a whole season or anything like that. I was really lucky and luckily I’m young and got some strong bones.”
The road back for Barnes was not easy. She was day-to-day up until Saturday’s game, with her only practices coming the Thursday and Friday immediately before. The news came Friday night that she would be in the lineup. Barnes knew she would be limited in ice time, and played just 12:47. She did play on the second power play, and earned the primary assist on the game-tying goal.
🚨 Jennifer Gardiner 🚨
— RDS (@RDSca) December 1, 2024
De retour à la case départ à la Place Bell! #pwhl #lphf pic.twitter.com/h36aNcAVQt
Barnes was the fifth player introduced after the three goaltenders and defender Mariah Keopple. There’s a decent chance that a lot in attendance didn’t know she would even be in the lineup, which was announced shortly before the introductions if they weren’t paying close attention to warmup. It was Barnes’s first experience of the Montreal crowd.
“The fans were so loud,” Barnes said. “I’ve honestly never really been in an atmosphere like that, so it almost brought tears to my eyes. This is a moment I’ve been waiting for a really long time.”
She also thought about the people who got her back on the ice.
”A lot of emotions and a lot of hard work, not only by me, but our staff as well, so a big thank you for them because a lot more went on to get me on the ice than just myself,” Barnes said. “That’s where a lot of the emotions came from.”
When Barnes was growing up, the goal was always the Olympics. It’s something every player in the PWHL has, or had, but having that dream come true so early didn’t impact her professional debut.
“Growing up this league didn’t exist, so the goal was the Olympics and obviously that was an amazing experience,” Barnes said. “When this league came about, it gave us all an opportunity to have a new dream, so this was a new dream of mine and to realize that and be able to be a part of something that’s so much bigger than myself, this moment will be a legacy that lasts for such a long time.”
Barnes joined the American team just after their boycott for better support from USA Hockey prior to the 2017 World Championships. She was on the team when it found out that the Canadian Women’s Hockey League would no longer exist, announced while they were already in Finland for the 2019 World Championships. She may have graduated into a world where the PWHL exists, but is no stranger to the work that led to it.
“I’m super honoured to be able to play alongside such phenomenal hockey players that are going to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame like [Marie-Philip Poulin] and Hilary Knight, all these players that really paved the way,” she said. “A couple of years ago, this was a new dream of mine. It’s OK to have new dreams and I’m super excited to be able to be here and fulfill this new dream.”
