Check out Part One and Part Two!
Erica Rieder’s first moments back on the ice weren’t what she envisioned. It’s moment that many hockey players who have taken longer breaks can easily relate to – feeling like Bambi.
“A lot of people coming back to hockey asked me, ‘Are your legs stronger? Did that help you on the ice at all?’ Honestly, I was falling a lot,” Rieder explains “No joke, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning…the stability was not there and my legs exploded because all I ever trained was legs. They were so heavy with muscle that I felt off-balance!”
After only pedaling in a straight line and up-and-down motion for two years, I ask if the lateral pushing motion caught her by surprise. She says, “Yeah, the side-to-side motion for me was like, ‘what’s going on here!'”
She linked up with the University of Manitoba players during the spring and summer for training. She says the hockey parts came back like muscle memory: “I did say to the girls, if I look like I’m dying out here, I am! Cardio-wise it’s not there.”
She continues, “It took me about half the season to get that feeling, sort of stable. I could play and it was fine, but going into the corners and like [my legs] were looking for an answer.”
To any readers wondering if track cycling would get you in shape for your next season, Rieder says this: “I don’t think it made much of a difference. It’s always good to have strong legs, but it wasn’t crazy noticeable.”
Rieder concluded her first season in Luleå with four goals and 16 assists for a total of 20 points across 36 games. This is a nearly identical stat-line to her third season in MoDo with six goals and 17 assists in 24 games.
But Rieder wasn’t just battling the physical aspects of returning to hockey after a break. The coastal city of Luleå is approximately 68 miles south of the Swedish Arctic Circle, which means nearly permanent sunlight in the summer months but about four hours of sunlight in the winter.
“I didn’t find that the winters were crazy. The darkness is what got me good, real good you know,” Rieder explains, “I got back this year, and I was sleeping a lot. You wake up, it’s dark. We would train in the morning so you go to the rink, it’s dark. You go into the rink, you do your workout and then you’re practicing while the sun is up, leave the rink and it’s dark.”
Rieder continues, “I did decide I need to be in a better routine this year, with a lot of vitamin D supplements and everything, because I would sleep a full eight to nine hours night, get up, go to the rink, do my training, come home, and then I would nap for three hours. Then I would get up, eat, and then I would sleep all night again, so it wasn’t ideal.”
At the time of writing, Rieder is back in Luleå for the 2025-2026 season training camp and one of the first things the team posted about was, “The Bike Test.”
Past Lessons, Present Reflections, and Future Ambitions
“Growing up, only ever playing team sport, that was my comfort zone,” Rieder beings, “and I’m proud of myself for having the courage to step outside of that and do something that was terrifying to me and very much challenged me and my thoughts as of myself as an athlete, but also as a person of like who I am, If I’m not a hockey player?”
She talks about how it felt announcing her big goals of pursing the Olympics publicly and the vulnerability of those moments. She says, “I also learn personally I’m more of a reserved person in terms of, I have goals but I’m not gonna shout them from the rooftops and tell everyone. Being so upfront and direct about it was very new for me, and I think honestly I’m thankful for it. It was like, ‘Okay! Well, we’re doing this like, we’re really doing this like, Hey, everyone! I want to go to the Olympics.’ And there was a lot of video coverage and commercials, and people were like, ‘Oh, I saw you!’
“I learned that it’s okay to be a vulnerable and put it out there and tell people that’s your goal. And if you fall short, that’s okay! I think a lot of people are very interested in the process, more so even than the end result,” she says.
With a new perspective on herself as a person and an athlete, what are some of the things that were different or the same for Rieder in her first season back in hockey? The big ones were team culture, a more “go-with-the-flow” vibe and a newly-secured athletic identity.
“Coming back to hockey last year, I felt very protective of the team aspect of things like very, because I felt like I had my training partners and I had my my small group that I was close with,” Rieder details. “When I got back to hockey, I was dying to have that team feeling again. In terms of team dynamics and things happening in the dressing room, I was very protective about it because I was missing it for two years.”
Finally, for someone as goal and ambition driven as Rieder, what does she have her eyes set on next? While there’s motivation to continue being a high level athlete, its a little too early for any specifics but there are certainly plenty of doors to choose from.
Rieder responds, “Yes, definitely, I like to have a goal. I’m training this summer and I have another year on my contract out there. We’ll see what happens this year, we’ll see how it goes, but the PWHL is now expanding and it’s becoming an option for a lot of girls. I wouldn’t totally close the door on that at this point, because who knows where I’ll be in a year from now? Maybe I go back to Sweden, maybe I come back to North America, maybe we try for a spot. Who knows? But I think it’d be a really cool experience to try and take a crack at that at that league at some point.”
Advice for Ambitious Athletes?
Rieder finishes the interview by sharing her advice to any athletes reading this with high goals they’re unsure about: “It’s going to be uncomfortable, but you are going to be so glad and grateful and proud of yourself that you continue to do it. You pushed through and that you that you committed to it and you did it because you’re gonna learn a lot. It’s gonna be hard, but do your best to push through, and and you will see results whether that’s things you learn about yourself or results in the sport that you want that you’re striving for.”
She concludes, “Keep going. Commit to it. And and you got it!”