From Olympic gold to hockey royalty - PWHL Ottawa Charge head coach Carla MacLeod

Hockey royalty runs in Carla MacLeod's veins.  

Sure, the Ottawa Charge head coach and defender has represented Canada on the world stage every year from 2003 to 2007, when Canada won its ninth gold medal at the IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship.  

And Olympic gold medals? MacLeod has two of those from the 2006 Turin and 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She coached women's teams, including the Japanese team, when they qualified for the 2014 Rochi games. 

But hockey goes way deeper than even that – she's also related, through her paternal grandmother, to one of the greatest players of all time, the legendary Montreal Canadiens' Maurice "Rocket" Richard.  

As MacLeod heads into her second year of coaching one of the groundbreaking Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) as Ottawa Charge head coach, hockey superfan Jeff Walker (and CAA North & East Ontario's CEO and President) checked in with her to talk about what a second season in professional women's hockey looks like as part of our Coaches Clips series. 

It's the second year for the PWHL Ottawa Charge. What are you most excited about this year? 

This building. We've been so fortunate we started this venture last year and to be so welcomed by the people in this community. For us to walk out and, it was like day one blew us away, but it was every game. Because our fans are the best fans in the league.  

There's a lot of parity in the league. Ottawa had a lot of one-goal games last year. As a coach, what are the things you talk to your team about in all those tight games?  

I think that's what made the league so impressive last year was the parity. It came down to that almost every game. And you look at our overtime experience, we had all those opportunities to gain points. So, in the off-season, we were able to reflect on those games and figure out what is it. And it really boils down to simple little details. So that's going to be an emphasis for us this year. We know every game is going to be that tight, you have to embrace it, you have to be excited for it. And then how do you execute those small details in the right moment to get on the right side of the scoreboard? We want to be a more physical team when harder to play against. But the parity of the league is what makes this league great.  

You have to be great under pressure. You know, there are no six-nothing games in this league. What's the one thing you want this team to be better at this year than they were last year?  

It's just that defending piece. We want to be the team in the league that nobody wants to play. And we know all six teams share that same mission. So how do we get ourselves to become that team? And it boils down to the willingness and the desire to want to be that way. And our players have shown us, leading into this training camp and hopefully we'll see it on opening day in Montreal, then home opener on December 3rd here, we'll see that we're showing, 'Hey, we're not going to back down. We're going to rise in those games and in those moments.' So, I think it comes down to that.  

Now, there's another dimension to this: girls' youth hockey. What do you say to those young girls about their aspirations to get to the PWHL?  

Well, you know, it's a reminder of sort of how far this game has come and how important this moment has been to have this league and, and these opportunities for those young gals to dream.  

I think the nice thing when we go back into the dressing rooms, we're brought back to our roots, right? What this game is about, why we started the passion piece. And you see the smile, you see little pink helmets, and the fact that you walk into a rink nowadays and you see young girls on the ice and you don't even think twice about it.  

That's still relatively new in our world. So, to now know that when we walk out to a game and that's them and their brothers and their moms and their dads are in these stands watching women play the game, the sky is the limit now within this sport for us because of this opportunity.  

And it's not even just on the ice. You know, I'm behind a bench. There are chances to coach. There's a media side. There are so many different roles available to young girls who are passionate about the game. And that's one of the big pieces we're all thrilled about in the league.  

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