Laura Stacey has been to four IIHF Women’s World Championships, and two Olympic Games. She has won two gold medals at the Worlds, one Olympic gold, and a Clarkson Cup. But as she prepares for her fifth Worlds to be held in Brampton, Ontario starting Wednesday, her best hockey may still be ahead of her.
The 28-year-old Kleinburg, Ontario native’s play with Canada to close out the Rivalry Series in February made her the standout performer in Trois-Rivières and Laval as Canada completed the comeback down from three games to none to win the seven-game series.
It hasn’t always been this way for her. Like so many people on the national team, or even on the radar, she has been a top player on her team for as long as she has played hockey. Not everyone on Team Canada can play the same role they play with their club, and that takes an adjustment. Embracing your role and finding the way to excel is the difference between being a healthy scratch or having limited playing time versus playing a pivotal role for Team Canada. Stacey has already seen one side of that, and in 2023 she is poised to play the other.
In the Rivalry Series and in the team’s pre-tournament game on Saturday, Stacey was on Canada’s third line with Blayre Turnbull and Emily Clark. Turnbull and Clark have been key players for Canada, playing so well defensively that their penalty killing shifts have been deemed the power kill. Stacey’s addition to that line, powered by her improved mindset, has made her a perfect complement.
“I think you have to find a way to impact the game no matter how many shifts you get, no matter where those shifts are,” Stacey said after the Rivalry Series. “Embracing that defensive zone responsibility and playing strong from defence out, that’s where the offence has started a lot of the times. Blayre and Emily both do an amazing job of that and I’m lucky to be able to be a part of their line and get to play with them these last few games. We have tried to embrace that strong defensive mindset in order to allow us to get some offence and to create for ourselves and just to be tough to play against. And it can be difficult at times to embrace that. But I think at the end of the day, when you use your strengths to your advantage, and you have fun with it, and you enjoy playing with your teammates, I think that’s what makes everything a lot easier.”
TURNBULL SCORES AGAIN 🚨
32 seconds later, Blayre Turnbull has her second of the night.#RivalrySeries pic.twitter.com/VkJED4uuD4
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) February 23, 2023
“I think she’s embraced the type of player she is,” said Canadian national team head coach Troy Ryan. “A lot of times it’s tough here at the national team level and it’s a constant try out. You’re constantly trying to prove. And I think she realized that she had a little success being that power forward that can play both ends of the rink. And I think once you settle in and you’re kind of eager to be that type of player, your skills just have a chance to shine. Some of the plays she made, she looked like a top offensive player, but she’s doing it without sacrificing the physical side of the game and the aggressive side.”
Since Ryan took over the top job with the women’s national team, the team’s relentlessness has been obvious, and a big reason for their success. The team has not lost a tournament since he became the head coach, winning the gold medal at the 2021 and 2022 Worlds with an Olympic gold medal in between.
It’s something that has suited and sculpted Stacey’s skill set.
“I think the more relentless, the pursuit, the turnovers, the being tough to play against, I think it’s something that we’re really trying to focus on,” Stacey said. “It’s not easy to play when you don’t have any time and space. So the more we can take that away, not only does it create less for them, but it creates more for us.”
“She’s just such an athlete too,” Ryan said. “She has long legs, long arms. She skates hard and she always gives everything she’s got, so it’s really cool to see, to be honest. It’s so fun to watch her embrace what she is as a player and she’s getting rewarded for it.”
Stacey has always been known for her speed and quickness on the ice, but the ability to create and finish plays consistently at the international level is what was holding her back from being a difference maker. That’s the part of her game that stands out in recent events.
“She’s just got incredible speed on the wing,” said Liz Knox, Stacey’s teammate with the Markham Thunder and current PWHPA broadcaster. “I think that in recent years, we’ve just seen her able to harness that and almost work smarter, not harder. Don’t get me wrong, she works hard all over the ice ― but I think that she’s really captured the capability of using that speed at opportunistic times to create chances, not only for herself, but for her line.
“In women’s hockey, especially because there’s so much speed, when you find players that are able to actually slow the game down it’s a great asset,” Knox continued. “I think her adding that change of pace to her game has allowed her to see the ice a little bit more, versus just seeing the north south game that we saw her play in her first year out of college.”
“When you don’t overthink it, you’re always quicker because you don’t hesitate. Laura’s not hesitating. There’s no hesitation,” said Cheryl Pounder, a former Team Canada defender and current analyst at TSN. “I teach kids and when they’re learning something, they forget everything that they do well because they’re thinking about where they need to be. And that makes them look like they’re just a step behind. There’s no hesitation [with Laura]. She knows exactly where she’s going.”
The speed in her ability to execute has also translated in other ways.
“She might hate me for calling her out on this, but she’s hitting the net a lot more than she was in her early years in the CWHL,” Knox said. “When you’re seeing the game at such a high pace, and then you have to have the fine motor skills to get an accurate shot on net… I think in her early days, the immaturity of her game was just lots of pucks were wide and rimming around, and then she’s hustling back to get on the back-check. In recent years, we’ve just seen her picking that inside post. It just seems the inches she was outside the posts in her early days, she’s just inside the post these days.”
Laura Stacey gives Canada the back-to-back goal! pic.twitter.com/Tv5kMeOTfx
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) February 21, 2023
In addition to her play with Team Canada, it has also been a great season for Stacey at the club level with Team Adidas in the PWHPA. In 20 regular season and playoff games, she had nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points, good for fourth in overall scoring. Starting with the 2019-20 season, Stacey started training in Montreal at the Centre 21.02.
“It’s definitely feeling a little better out there. It’s just been fun. Getting the opportunity to play in the PWHPA and play with and against some of the best players and training in Montreal with a great group of people too is really pushing me,” Stacey said. “I think things are definitely clicking, it’s feeling pretty good. But obviously, there’s still a lot of work to be done and a lot of progress to be made. I think it’s just about having fun and enjoying the moment right now. And that’s what a lot of us are doing and what we’re trying and it has been.”
Despite Stacey’s extended tenure with the national team, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. She made her senior team debut at the 2017 World Championships and did not get a point in five games. She made the 2018 Olympic team and averaged 9:46 per game, with just 8:41 in the gold medal game ― which went for 80 minutes.
At the 2019 Worlds, she averaged 9:56 per game and despite getting an assist in the first period of the semi-final against Finland, finished with just 2:57 of ice time in a game Canada ultimately lost.
After the 2020 Worlds were canceled, she played only one game at the 2021 tournament and was a healthy scratch with the expanded rosters. There was a turning point in 2022. She averaged 10:13 at the 2022 Olympics, but played only 2:11 in the gold medal game. Then at the summer World Championships, she averaged 11:38 with 16:31 in the gold medal game and at the most recent Rivalry Series, she was second in scoring with five points (2G-3A) in five games.
Bouncing back from adversity is nothing new from Stacey. In 2016 at Dartmouth, her final NCAA shift ended with her breaking both of her wrists. The end of a college career, especially for women, comes with the potential decision of stepping away from the game. In Stacey’s case it was a glimpse of how hard she’d work to get to where she wanted to be.
“She’s always finding drive and determination, she broke both her wrists in the very last game of our college career,” said Ailish Forfar. Forfar played with Stacey in high school when both were playing junior hockey in Toronto; the two went to Dartmouth together, and reunited briefly in the CWHL with the Markham Thunder.
“For a lot of people, [they would be] like ‘I’m retired, I broke both my wrists the very last shift in my college career’. And she just found that was a small hurdle to overcome to get to the Olympics. She’s got so much drive, she’s got so much dedication to her craft, and it really is like a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week thing for Laura. She hasn’t just turned it on. She’s been like that since I’ve known her in high school. She’s someone that really sets high goals for herself, and will work to achieve it. That’s always been Laura.”
“It was impressive because if you didn’t know that story, you would have never known,” said Knox. “She was not somebody who was seeing the trainer getting her wrists taped every practice or game. She came into [Brampton] in shape ready to play and it was probably about midway through the season before I found that story out. But it speaks to the resilience that she had and obviously the work that she put in to be healthy. A lot of players at that point in their career, you’re in your last year of college, you break both your wrists and there’s a lot of people who – and rightfully so – would just mail it in, and Laura’s just not that player.”
It was something that shaped her as she struggled to establish a role at the national team level.
“When you make the top team, once you’re there you want to perform, because you want to stay there,” Pounder said. “So I think as you get older, and not necessarily older, but maybe the mindset of ‘I’m here now, and I’m going to give what I have in the moment, because you never know what tomorrow holds’. And I think a lot of players get to a point in their career where they have that freeing element. ‘I’m going to go play and free myself of the pressure that I’m going to apply to myself’. There’s always pressure, but there’s the extra pressure that we add to ourselves because we worry about decisions that are being made. And then you finally go, ‘yeah, well, out of my control, I’m just going to go do what I know I could do and be me.'”
It is something that Stacey agrees with.
“It’s hard to look at it that way in terms of fighting for spots, and always trying out,” she said. “I think a lot of us, what we try to do is just look at the present moment, try and get better every single day. The more you look to the future, the more you look at what’s happening, what’s going to happen, all those things are out of your control. But what is in your control is showing up every day, training hard every day, pushing yourself every day. And then hopefully the rest can take care of itself.”
“That’s very liberating,” Pounder said. “I certainly see an element to her game that’s very free right now. And then she’s seen some success from a production standpoint as well, not just being on a PK or not just on the forecheck but doing something with that puck when she gets it, and it’s elevated her game even more because she’s recognizing it. I think those around her are recognizing it, and let’s face it, it’s a great feeling.
“Sometimes it takes certain things to happen for you to have a different perspective, that can change things to enjoy the moment, as difficult as it may be, or be focused on today, and tomorrow will take care of itself. I think that’s a big element, is embrace where you are now,” Pounder said. “Because you don’t know what tomorrow holds. And no one has that crystal ball. So enjoy, enjoy where you are, but be free to be you. And I think that’s a liberating way to play. Because for years, I know I didn’t have it because you’re so worried about making it. You can spend so much time being so worried about where you stand that you get lost in it. So I think for her right now, it seems to me that she’s not just saying she believes those words, she’s approaching every day like that.”
The adversity Stacey has faced mixed with her drive and determination has snowballed into the place she finds herself at right now. The ability to understand not only what her role is, but how to excel at it, has taken her to new heights. By focusing less on what lies ahead, her future seems brighter than ever.
“I’m still trying to [figure out what has changed],” Stacey said. “I would say maybe a little bit more on the mental side: embracing whatever role I have and having fun with it, and trying to stay in the present moment versus looking forward to the next event, the next chance to make the team, all those things. Now I’m trying to focus on that present moment, being honoured to be a part of the team no matter what opportunity I get, and having fun showing up to training every day. I think that’s been a big one. For me, it’s just wanting to actually be at the rink, at the gym, every single moment with the girls that I’m surrounded with. And the more I focus on that, I hope that it helps.”
“She’s just such a great lead-by-example kind of player that I’m pretty sure you could tell her she’s going to be a backup goalie and she’d be ‘okay… What do I have to do?’ I think mentally she’s very strong, and that she can accept roles, and she can adjust her mindset,” Knox said. “But I think the harder one is figuring out how you tweak your game, or how you adjust your game, because some of these players are used to being the go-to offence on their college teams, or CWHL teams, or wherever it may be ― being the big fish. And now you’re adjusting, you just can’t simply expect to play the same kind of game in a different role. It’s those fine adjustments that are harder to come by and it takes ― honestly, to Stacey’s credit ― it takes a little bit of risk. It’s finding those small adjustments that are going to not only show that you accept the role, but that you can excel at it. And I think that’s something that takes time and patience and practice, but it’s certainly paid off.”
“I feel like I’ve been watching her over the last two years come into her own,” said Forfar. “In the sense of understanding her role, I think there was a time where she came from being a top line forward basically everywhere she played. With this Canadian program right now, she’s been put into a bit of a different role, and I think that that takes a little bit of getting used to. But in terms of where she’s at now, I’ve seen such a boost of confidence, and I think that comes with her understanding what her skill set is. I just see a Laura Stacey that’s playing to her skill set, that’s fast, that’s aggressive, and a little bit of a good checker type of Laura Stacey. And I think that she’s developed a different opportunity to contribute on the team.”
The success she’s having has also fostered a willingness to push herself even more.
“That’s kind of been my mindset lately,” Stacey said. “Just enjoying the process. I think the more we look ahead, the more we miss along the way. It’s an honour to be a part of the national team. And the more we look at it in that sense and want to be there and have fun every day, the easier and the more fun we have. I think the more fun we can have along the way, the more success and the better off we’re all going to be. Our team obviously embraces that idea a lot as well. That’s why we’re smiling. That’s why we’re having fun. We really enjoy being around each other. So looking at it more as like, hey, it’s an honour out here. And I’m going to keep trying every day to stay in the present and hopefully stay there.”
It’s something that people like Pounder can see as well.
“Right now, you can certainly see that she’s having fun, whether she’s in an interview, whether she’s warming up, she’s exactly where she wants to be,” Pounder said. “And you have to ride these waves too, because when you’re not playing like you know you can, it’s very difficult to get out of it. So I think right now is just an enjoyable time, because she’s playing some of her best hockey that I’ve ever seen.”
Stacey’s not the only one having fun as a result of her play, either.
“It’s just a pleasure to coach her right now,” Ryan said.
