The Vancouver Goldeneyes closed the book on their first season in the Professional Women’s Hockey League at Pacific Coliseum on Saturday with a thrilling 4-3 overtime win against the two-time defending Walter Cup champions Minnesota Frost. The Goldeneyes finished with the sixth best regular season record and failed to make the playoffs, but ended the season on a high, winning their last four contests. “Our identity started to form and show being that heavy team, kind of relentless,” says Goldeneyes forward Sarah Nurse. “I think we have a good foundation and a good base that we’re going to be able to start way ahead of where we started this year.” Pacific Coliseum had the second-best attendance in the PWHL this season, seeing an average of more than 11,000 fans per game, only behind fellow expansion team, the Seattle Torrent. “As the season went on you started to see the fans kind of take over our identity, our logo, our branding and just fill this place,” says Goldeneyes captain, Ashton Bell. “From our first game to our last they showed up for us and the energy in that last game was incredible.” With Vancouver now in the offseason, it is expected the team will look vastly different in their second season. The PWHL is expected to grow next season with another round of expansion soon to be announced. The league is projected to expand to 12 teams, with either four new teams joining next season, or two expansion sides in each of the next two seasons. Fifteen Goldeneyes will be also hitting the free agent market this offseason, including Nurse, Claire Thompson, and Surrey’s Jenn Gardiner. While the details of expansion are yet to be released, Goldeneyes general manager Cara Gardner Morey knows it is going to be a difficult offseason ahead. “My biggest challenge in the offseason is making sure we have our core here, keeping as many players as we can through this process and then finishing our roster with people who are going to help us elevate our game to the next level,” says Morey. Vancouver’s thrilling OT victory in the season finale also secured the first overall pick in the upcoming PWHL Entry Draft, thanks to the league’s unique ‘gold plan’ that has non-playoff teams compete for draft order. While the Goldeneyes have made no indication of who they might pick, American defender Caroline Harvey is widely expected to be the first pick off the board at this year’s draft. Harvey is coming off an incredible year that includes winning MVP at the Winter Olympics, the Patty Kazmaier Award for best NCAA women’s hockey player, an Olympic gold medal for team USA and a NCAA national championship with the University of Wisconsin. While many of the names on the back of the jerseys will be different next season, the team believe local support for the Goldeneyes is only going to continue to grow. “I think the legacy being built in Vancouver is just touching the surface of it here I think there’s so much that this team is going to grow into and I’m so excited for the future of Vancouver,” said Gardiner.
