Not the ending they wanted, but PWHL Toronto’s first year a success

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Sarah Nurse will take a reminder of her first year in the PWHL into the off-season with her in the form of a splint on her left hand.

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But there will be other reminders, plenty of them a lot more positive than a broken index finger.

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Those positive memories and franchise-establishing steps that were taken were the overriding memories of a year that fell just short for PWHL Toronto but a group that refused to only see the end result as a Year 1 takeaway.

Nurse actually broke the finger in the final game of the regular season against Minnesota and then played the entire five-game series with it in a splint.

Nurse said she should be fully healed in six weeks, the finger at least.

Getting over a best-of-five series loss after being up 2-0 might take a little longer.

“We had such high expectations of ourselves,” Nurse said Sunday morning as the team conducted its exit interviews and final media interviews. “We wanted to win a championship in the end and we weren’t afraid to say that at all.”

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“I look at how hard it is in any sport to be a first place team so I’m proud we were able to check that box off the list, but going into playoffs that was a whole different atmosphere,” she said. “I don’t think many of us had played in a five-game series. I’ve done three before but never five. I don’t know how they do seven in the NHL but it was just completely different.

“I think obviously we didn’t get the result we wanted but the results and the outcome don’t necessarily define the season and I think that is something we have stood true by and that we’ve understood and known coming from a National team perspective,” Nurse said. “Sometimes the best team doesn’t win at the end of it and that’s OK because we have a lot of things we can be proud of.”

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High on that list for Nurse and Blayre Turnbull and Renata Fast and Jocelyne Larocque, all members of PWHL Toronto’s leadership group, is the foundation that has been laid for the generations of players to come.

There’s a way PWHL Toronto plays and conducts itself and this group fully expects that will be the way for years to come, even after some of them depart.

“I think that is what I am most proud of as the leader and someone who has a lot of experience playing hockey and being on a lot of different teams,” Turnbull said. “I am so proud of the foundation that we set here in Toronto. Just to think about the culture and the environment and the buy-in we got from all of our players and staff. It was just incredible to be a part of and I know moving forward this franchise will succeed and the success will have a lot to do with everything we did this year.”

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Larocque said her fondest memory of the season will probably be the closeness and togetherness the entire leadership team helped create within their locker room.

“The amount of people I heard after Game 5 – I mean we took our team getting undressed – and the amount of players that said this was the best team they have ever been a part of made me feel so proud,” Larocque said. “And I agree with them. It’s such a great team. The way everyone felt included, everyone felt they could be themselves and was proud to wear that Toronto jersey.”

The reality of the situation is though that this team will not be back together as is a year from now. The dynamics of the league – from the contract lengths to the incoming talent in the draft — mean change is a certainty.

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“There will be change,” defender Renata Fast said, “but I am looking forward to the group that we put together.

“Our staff did an incredible job putting first the type of player and person that they want and I know they will do the same for year two,” Fast said. “Now that we know what the season feels like and the demands it takes, I think we will be more prepared especially even for playoffs. Just knowing how playoffs work and momentum shifts and stuff like that.”

There were plenty of highs for this team, ranging from selling out Scotiabank Arena for a then-record crowd for women’s hockey and then being part of that Bell Centre game that took things a step further.

Those two games were easily the most often selected when players were asked their personal highlights of the year.

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Nurse didn’t limit herself to just one.

“I think there were big moments and there were little moments,” she said. “Playing at the Bell Centre is an easy win. To break the worldwide record for attendance? That was monumental. Coming into this I was like ‘I have played in front of the biggest crowds people play in front of’ and I hadn’t, right? We broke a world record this year so that was a big one.

“But also little things like not having to sit with your hockey equipment on a bus on a road trip,” she said. “Having your equipment put in the locker room for you in a nice stall. Just little things like we have never really had in women’s hockey so every single day being able to come to the rink and be a professional hockey player and feel like it was special.”

Training camp is a little less than five months away, but the itch to get back at it is already there. Year 1 was special and significant for many reasons, but this group will not be fully satisfied until they win it all.

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