Distance no object when it comes to Hannah Miller and hockey

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There’s not a player on the Toronto PWHL roster that made a longer commute to join the team when they broke camp than Hannah Miller.

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Not long after learning she had been the 74th overall pick (13th round) in the inaugural PWHL draft, Miller, 27, got in her car and drove cross country from her parents’ hometown of Peachland, B.C. to Toronto.

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It’s a just over 4,100 km journey, but nowhere near her longest commute to play hockey.

Commutes to play the game she loves are nothing new to Miller.

It was only a few short years ago that Miller moved to the other side of the world to play hockey.

“Before I graduated (from St. Lawrence College in 2018) everyone was going through that process of where will I play now?,” Miller recalled. “How is the career going to continue? I knew I wanted to keep playing and fortunately I had a former teammate (from St. Lawrence College) who had previously graduated and was already over in China playing.

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“So I reached out and kind of realized that would be something I would want to do,’ she said.”

Even better, the franchise she approached, Kunlun Red Star were one of the Chinese teams the CWHL was expanding to include so on draft day, having expressed an interest in playing for that team, the Kalun Red Stat Vanke Rays selected Miller in the CWHL draft.

“I think Kunlun Red Star as an organization was kind of ahead of some others at that time in terms of what they were able to provide — a salary and just the resources — and still getting to play in the CWHL meant I would still be coming back to North America,” she said.

But her stay with the Chinese program turned out to be more than just a one off. Even after the CWHL folded after Miller’s first year the Chinese program in 2018-19, she stayed on with Kalun Red Star which moved to the ZhHL (Russian Women’s Hockey League) the following year as COVID started to shut things down and made travel impossible.

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Kalun Red Star would change its name to Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays and would stay in the ZhHL and remain in Russia where they relocated in order to play while COVID waged on.

It could not have been ideal from a living standard perspective, but Miller was playing hockey professionally and that was all she wanted.

“It’s definitely a different path, a unique path, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Miller says. “Hockey is our job and it’s definitely my passion. It’s what I absolutely love to do but China was also a life experience for me. Getting to see other cultures, getting to connect with different teammates from all over the world — Finish, Swedish, Czech, national team players. So it was just really cool life experience over all.”

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Miller would spend five seasons overseas, including a partial year stint in the Swedish Women’s Hockey League with Djurgarden before returning to China for another partial season and one more full one with Shenzhen in the ZhHL in advance of the Beijing Olympics.

Miller would represent China at those Games and score its first Olympic goal in 12 years for China on opening night of the Beijing Olympics.

It was the culmination of a lot of hard work, work she would one day like to continue.

All of Miller’s focus right now is on the PWHL and the success of the Toronto entry in that league.

She’s not sure if or when she will get back to China but it’s not something that is ever far from her mind. Her involvement in the growth of women’s hockey in China is something she is very proud of and would like to continue at a later date.

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“I think some things with China and the national team are a little unclear right now,” she says when asked if she will every play there again, “but I hope to return one day. My hope is to be involved with the national team moving forward. I care a lot about it and care a lot about the development of Chinese women’s hockey. I have seen it progress. I was over there for a while. It’s something I would like to stay involved with and potentially even when I’m done playing in a coaching or skill development role. I hope the door is always open for me.”

But for right now she is playing hockey in a professional women’s league the likes of which the world has never seen before and that’s more than enough to fill the hockey fix within.

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