The 2024-25 Toronto Sceptres hit the ice for the first time together yesterday.
A total of 27 players — three goalies, eight defenders, and 16 forwards — skated with reigning league MVP Natalie Spooner and 12th overall draft pick Megan Carter both on the team’s long-term injured list.
For all intents and purposes, Friday will mark the first real practice of training camp as Thursday was limited to skill work with each group — goalies, defenders and forwards — skating at their own allotted time.
Ideally, head coach Troy Ryan said the first ice time would be a full team practice rather than squeezing an ice session on an off-ice testing day. That said, there was still plenty to learn from Day 1:
WHO’S READY TO GET BETTER?
Deprived of that first team practice, Ryan said yesterday’s skill sessions were still an opportunity to get to know how some his new players reacted to instruction.’
“For me it is just more how receptive they are to being coached and being talked to,” he said of what he got out of the day. “It’s more of a social thing. I’m not expecting anyone to step on the ice Day 1 in their first training camp in a skills type of session and wow anybody. But if something happens within a drill and I come and have a chat with them, how receptive are they and are they able to implement the suggestions I made? That is what I look for — how open are they to being coached, and so far, so good.”
NEWCOMER WATTS ALREADY MADE AN IMPRESSION
Toronto native Daryl Watts is a newcomer to the Sceptres, having signed as a free agent after a team-high 10-goal year with Ottawa in the first season of the PWHL.
Watts was with Team Canada and Ryan out west for the first three games of the Rivalry Series and made an impression on her new head coach before she even hit the ice.
“I was really impressed with (Watts’) openness early on to being coached,” Ryan said. “I think I got a text during Rivalry Series from her and she just said ‘I have a lot to learn.’
“A player that says that, that’s what you want. I wrote her a text back saying ‘I still have a lot to learn too, so let’s figure this out together.’
“We went for a small little walk at the rink and discussed some of the ways she can improve her breakout and her d-zone play and she just seemed open to it,” Ryan said. “You always have hope when you have players like that who are that open and even initiate the conversation at times. So, my short little window I have had experience with her, she seems open to getting better and if she continues to get better, she’ll be a great player.”
CAMP BATTLES
One of the more potentially impactful battles in camp is going to come on the blue line, particularly with the news that second-round pick Megan Carter had to be put on long term injured with a lower-body injury.
That leaves the Sceptres with four signed defenders — Renata Fast, Jocelyne Larocque, Allie Munroe and Kali Flanagan. The Sceptres will carry seven defenders assuming they follow last year’s roster makeup, and that means roster spots for three of the four remaining defenders in camp — returnees Olivia Knowles and Jessica Kondas, unsigned third round pick Lauren Bernard out of Ohio State, or unsigned free agent Rylind MacKinnon.
Knowles, who played in 20 games last season and all five playoff games, would appear to have an edge on the rest of the competition. Kondas spent the entire year on the team’s reserve list.
Bernard and MacKinnon both looked right at home with their new team.
Bernard is one of four defenders from that NCAA championship Ohio State team that are in PWHL camps.
MacKinnon is one of only a few players making the jump from a Canadian university campus to PWHL training camps. She captained the UBC Thunderbirds the past two years and was expected to be drafted into the PWHL.
When that didn’t happen, she accepted a camp invite from Toronto GM Gina Kingsbury.
A physical defender at 5-foot-10, this 24-year-old Cranbrook, B.C. native has the kind of game that would fit right in with the way the Sceptres are built and maybe even a little chip on her shoulder for being passed over in the draft.
“I will use that to whatever way that’s an advantage for me,” MacKinnon said. “I don’t know if I was overlooked necessarily, but there are a lot of good Canadian athletes that maybe aren’t getting looked at all the time, but maybe that will come with time.”