Canada celebrates 2014 Gold
Photo courtesy of M. Smelter, via Wikimedia.

Heading into the doldrums of the off-season it’s time to start getting the Olympic content rolling. Defender of the Year Renata Fast was on the Steve Dangle Podcast talking about the Olympics and it’s a reminder that before we know it the Olympics will be here. Team Canada will be running a two week on, two weeks off Olympic training camp from the end of August to the start of the PWHL season. Around 30 players will be invited, but those players won’t the only ones in contention for an Olympic spot.

These General Managers and coaches have one thing in mind and that’s winning. Olympic Gold is at stake so if a player partway through the season goes OFF ala Cayla Barnes and looks like someone who can make an impact at the Olympics, front offices will make room for that player. I know everyone has their opinions on Team Canada management, present company included, but there’s still a chance it could happen. Don’t forget that Chloe Primerano pulled off something only last done by Marie-Philip Poulin and that’s make Team Canada in her U18 season.

With an influx of new draft picks into the PWHL and a potential Olympic spot on the line, it won’t be surprising to see some players get off to a hot start to make a push for an Olympic spot, like players who are relative unknowns to the general fandom or who haven’t seen time with Team Canada in any meaningful way. The Olympics is the perfect time for a player to come out of nowhere to make their mark in history or hit a career high. These players are the ones to keep an eye on.

Jocelyn Amos, Ohio State University

If you’re an avid fan of WCHA hockey or just Ohio State University hockey in general, this should come as no surprise. If you’re someone who has been paying attention to my work, this isn’t the first time you’ve see Jocelyn Amos’ name come up as a candidate to make Team Canada. She was on the first line at the U22 Six Nations tournament in December. The thing is, though, that she still hasn’t made the team and that’s why she’s here. She hasn’t even been on a Rivalry Series roster yet either.

To the general women’s hockey fan, she’s an unknown. I don’t have any reach, so it doesn’t matter how much I talk about Amos, she’s still an unknown. She’s right on the cusp of being known, though. Amos was captain of the U22 Canadian team despite certainly not being the oldest. She centered the top line on the second-best team in the NCAA and finished fifth in the NCAA in goals, with 27, despite only being in her second NCAA season. That puts her ahead of Patty Kaz winner Casey O’Brien and USA national team members Kirsten Simms and Tessa Janecke.

Making Team Canada for the Olympics as an outsider is going to take more than good college numbers, though. You’re trying to join a team that’s aiming to reach the peak of their abilities. The level of competitiveness is going to be off the charts. In Amos’ case, she’s going to be looking to knock off pro players while still being in the NCAA. She’s not getting the benefit of constant looks in front of the Team Canada front office or against top competition every night.

But Amos does have quite a lot going in her favour. On Team Canada, she can be a role player. She doesn’t need to be in the top six to make an impact. Amos could be in the bottom six, providing a high level of two-way play while being a scoring threat too. She can actually handle being a center out of the NCAA. Another point in her favour is that she is in the Team Canada pipeline and is clearly seen as a leader, which means joining the Team Canada locker room shouldn’t be too difficult for her. Lastly, she plays under Nadine Muzerall, one of the most demanding coaches in NCAA hockey. Amos is being coached in a way that should make the transition to playing on Team Canada in the Olympics easier than most on this list.

Michela Cava, PWHL Vancouver

She’s starting to become a household name, and like Ann-Sophie Bettez before her, there’s an ongoing campaign to get Michela Cava onto Team Canada. Hard to say Cava in an unknown, especially since she is one of the big free agents to get a lot of press about her moving on from the Minnesota Frost to the new PWHL expansion team in Vancouver. If Cava makes Team Canada, it’ll be a surprise not because she’s unknown, but rather because she has no history with Team Canada. Maybe sometime in the past she attended a training camp, but she’s never been to any tournaments wearing the maple leaf.  

Cava’s hockey career is a fantastic example of always improving and making a name for yourself. She had a respectable NCAA career but nothing fancy. She joined the CWHL in 2018-19 and had a respectable season. Cava went to the SDHL next and immediately found her groove. She was a fantastic player for MoDo, putting up 119 points in 72 games. She then joined Brynäs IF and had another above point per game season. Then she ended up in Luleå HF, starting her legend as a winner. From the 2020-21 season to today, Cava has a streak of five straight championships (SDHL, ZiHL, PHF, x2 PWHL) going.

For Cava, the task is going to be proving she can be a top nine player on Team Canada who can bring the offence. Her two-way game is fine, but with Team Canada, if your two-way game is acceptable then you need to bring an elite offensive game with you. In Cava’s last two PWHL seasons, it’s been a tale of two seasons. In her first season, she finished 37th in primary points/60 (PTS1/60) while having a SH% of ~12%. This past season Cava finished 13th in PTS1/60 while shooting at 17%. Who is the real Cava? Coaches don’t really like uncertainty if they can avoid it.

What’s going in Cava’s favour is that she’s aces in the playoffs. You can always count on her to show up and rack up some points when it matters most. She was the ZiHL MVP with KRS, PHF playoff MVP with the Toronto Six, tied for PWHL playoff scoring in 2024, and tied for fifth in PWHL playoff scoring in 2025. Now she’s going to Vancouver with potentially the greatest opportunity of her career to make the Olympic team. Cava is going to be surrounded by Team Canada regulars, and if she develops chemistry with some of them plus just puts up a lot of points, it’s going to be hard to keep her off the team.

Anne Cherkowski, New York Sirens

This is going to be one of the most interesting categories of players and Anne Cherkowski is our first example of it: the recent PWHL draftees. These are the players who had good-to-great NCAA careers, and while they are on Team Canada’s radar, they need a situation in which to set themselves apart from the crowd. In the case of Cherkowski, she’s been a part of the Team Canada since her U17 season and was also on that U22 Six Nations roster with Jocelyn Amos on the top line. She’s yet to make the WHC roster, though, which is why she’s on this list!

She’s also on this list because Cherkowski has put herself in position to one day make Team Canada. First of all, she’s coming from one of the best NCAA to Team Canada pipelines in playing for Clarkson University. That organization develops national team players and has a track record that includes Renata Fast, Erin Ambrose, Ella Shelton, and Jamie Lee Rattray. Secondly, she’s been a very consistent producer at the NCAA level. Ever since the 2022-23 season, Cherkowski has been one of the highest point getters on a team that consistently makes the NCAA tournament and vies for the ECAC championship. She’s used to being an impact player on a winning team.

Cherkowski is on Team Canada’s radar, and coming into the PWHL, she’s going to have a great opportunity to show she’s an option for the Olympic roster. She gets to go into the PWHL, probably play top six minutes, and maybe even be on a line with Sarah Fillier. She’ll be able to show her abilities against the majority of the best talent women’s hockey has to offer. The PWHL is going to be a big producer of Olympic talent this year, and what better way to show you’ll be an Olympian than by going up against Olympians?

For Cherkowski to make Team Canada, she’ll need to show herself to be a great two-way player who can win the puck battles that get the puck to the skilled players. Her path is a bit easier than say Michela Cava’s, as Cherkowski can play anywhere in the line-up as a role player. If she can prove to Team Canada management that she’s a responsible two-way player who can succeed in the tough areas on the ice, she stands a chance at making Team Canada.

Jenna Buglioni, PWHL Seattle

As mentioned in Cherkowski’s section, there’s a group of players who are in one of the better positions to earn an Olympic roster spot: PWHL rookies who have been on Team Canada’s radar. Jenna Buglioni is one of these players. She was at the 2020 U18 WJC and most recently was at the U22 Six Nations for Team Canada. Buglioni also now holds the distinction of being Seattle’s first round PWHL selection as she was taken eighth overall. She’s going to a stacked team on forward, but this could work in her favour as she’s a center who can also move to wing if need be, increasing her versatility.

Team Canada has had their eye on Buglioni for good reason. Apart from a small down year in the 2022-23 season, she’s been a great offensive producer for Ohio State. It resonates with front offices when someone is putting up a lot of points on a great team. It’s fair to say Buglioni made an impact on OSU as they won two NCAA National Championships with her playing big roles, producing a lot of points, and being a leader on the team. Add in two more NCAA National Championship appearances and it’s been a great college career for Buglioni.

You’re going to notice a theme here. Chances are that if a surprise player makes Team Canada, it’s going to be as a role player. That’s someone who can do anything and play any sort of minutes no matter how little. I’m sure Gina Kingsbury and Troy Ryan wouldn’t be opposed to someone putting up a lot of points, but I would bet a lot of money on them being impressed by someone who is able to jump into the PWHL and be a very good two-way center. That’s Buglioni’s way onto the team: to make herself a viable option for all forward positions, because Team Canada philosophy, both men’s and women’s, is to bring a lot of centers. Players can always be a wing if need be, but having center options is ideal.

The points are nice, the two-way play is good, and the experience with Team Canada’s development program is helpful. Like with Jocelyn Amos, what’s going to ultimately help Buglioni make an ultra competitive Team Canada is her playing under the super-duper ultra competitive Nadine Muzerall, who walks barefoot during games. If you’re not a Team Canada regular, you don’t get the benefit of the doubt of starting slow. You need to be sprinting from the start. That’s what Muzerall instills in her players and why Buglioni was captain her last season at OSU.

Sarah Paul, University of Minnesota

For me personally, Sarah Paul is going to be one of my favourite players to watch next season. She’s a goal-scoring machine with one of the best shots in the game and is eligible for the PWHL draft as well. All she does is score goals, and Team Canada needs goals, especially on the PP where Troy Ryan teams typically struggle to score. Having Paul blasting one-timers set up by Ella Shelton or Chloe Primerano would help match the scoring prowess the USA is bringing.

It’s been a long road to this opportunity for Paul. She went and played in Canada’s best prep hockey system, scoring a lot of goals. Her last three seasons there, she scored 50 goals in 45 games. COVID interrupted her development and she only played two games in the 2020-21 season, then only seven games in the 2021-22 season. Next season didn’t get better for Paul, as she spent the entirety of the 2022-23 season injured. Back on the ice for her first ever full NCAA season, Paul scored 16 goals in 32 games on a team with only two +10 goal scorers, the other being Fillier with 30 goals in 29 games. Then just this past season, Paul scored 28 goals in 31 games, finishing fourth in NCAA goal scoring and first in goals per game.

Princeton is a good program that has had success at moving players into the PWHL (Maggie Connors and Mariah Keopple) and Team Canada (Claire Thompson and Sarah Fillier). But Princeton was never a powerhouse in the years Paul was there, with its last success coming in the 2019-20 season. Paul is now going to the University of Minnesota to play with Abbey Murphy and Chloe Primerano, where she’ll get the additional opportunity to play in a conference full of potential Team USA Olympians. The idea of Paul being set up by Murphy and Primerano should terrify the rest of the conference.

I’ll repeat it again here: if Team Canada is taking a surprise player, it’s most likely a role player. However, Paul has a skillset that’s on the rare side of Team Canada, which is the ability to just score goals at will. The ECAC is far from a weak conference, but being in the WCHA will allow Paul to show her skills against the best two teams in the NCAA of the past three seasons: Ohio State and Wisconsin. Should she come out guns a-blazing, putting holes in the net, and ending up being among the best goal scorers in the NCAA, Paul is going to make it hard for Team Canada to ignore such a pure needed goal scorer.

Caitlin Kraemer, University of Minnesota-Duluth

This is a long shot but also a long shot with the best chance of suddenly surprising everyone and making the team as a U20 player. Ever since Caitlin Kraemer came onto the scene at the 2023 U18 WJCs, she’s been destined to make Team Canada’s senior team. More than likely it’ll be at a WHC tournament—maybe the 2025 WHC tournament depending on what the PWHL participation is—but it’d be foolish to ignore that there’s a glimmer of hope she makes the Olympic team.

Kraemer isn’t just someone who has the eye of Team Canada. She has nearly all the eyes of Team Canada, and for good reason. When you go into a U18 tournament then just start smashing records set by Marie-Philip Poulin, Alex Carpenter, Brianna Decker, and anyone not named Kendall Coyne Schofield it sends a message. Kraemer is second all-time in U18 goals with 20 goals in 11 games, two behind Coyne who had 22 goals in 15 games. Kraemer is also tied for second with herself and Coyne for most goals in a single tournament (10). Last but not least Kraemer owns the all-time Canadian U18 goal record with the next closest being Marie-Philip Poulin at 13 goals in 10 games.

A record breaking U18 WJC career is great and looks so far to have been a good predictor of success in showing us what players are going to become stars. That doesn’t mean Kraemer or anyone else is going to have success now. What gives Kraemer a noticeable chance is how strong her true NCAA freshman season was. 18 goals in 39 games, most goals by a NCAA rookie, named WCHA Rookie of the Year, and NCAA Rookie of the Year while being a top six center on a team that went to the NCAA tournament and lost in the WCHA semi-final.

What will pave the way for Kraemer to make Team Canada is by being the center version of Natalie Spooner. She’s a natural goal scorer with one of the best shots around, she’s a large human being, she’s tough to knock off the puck, she plays center but can play wing too, she’s playing for a competitive program, and she’s playing under former Team Canada coach Laura Schuler. As a 19-year-old going into her second NCAA season, she’s a big time long shot for Team Canada, but if she takes the jump that her potential has opened the door for, it’s not hard to imagine her on Team Canada in Italy.

Dayle Ross, New York Sirens

It’s been all forwards up to this point because with the competition already for blueliner spots on Team Canada, a surprise candidate doesn’t just have to compete against the Team Canada regulars, but also against players who have Team Canada experience and have just been left off rosters because there’s no room. There appears to be a core of Ella Shelton, Renata Fast, Erin Ambrose, Claire Thompson, and Jocelyne Larocque. Then you have Chloe Primerano, Micah Zandee-Hart, Jaime Bourbonnais, Sophie Jaques, Ashton Bell, and Nicole Gosling all with Team Canada senior team experience as well. Essentially, you’re looking at trying to surpass five or six players to make the Olympic roster.

It’s fair to say it looks like a nearly impossible task. One could make the argument, though, that it was a nearly impossible task for Anna Wilgren to make the Team USA roster (knocking off Rory Guilday in the process) but she did it last season. Wilgren came into the PWHL as a rookie and showed off her excellent defensive skills and ability to play with Team USA regular Cayla Barnes. This earned Wilgren her first ever Team USA call, and she won a gold medal to boot. She only played two games but she was there.

For Dayle Ross to do the nearly impossible and make Team Canada as essentially an unknown who has never worn a Canadian jersey as far as I can tell, she’s going to need to follow the Ann Wilgren path. As a PWHL rookie, Ross needs to come in, wreck shop physically, and be a great shutdown defender to earn the eyes of Team Canada’s management. It’s not an easy job, but if there’s a blueliner with the skillset to do it, it’s Dayle Ross.

She’s coming off an injury but should be ready for PWHL training camp. In the NCAA this season, word from the players is that they hated playing against her. She played in the WCHA against the best teams, against the best competition, just eating up minutes, and ended up a +11 on a team with a -8 goal differential. She’ll block shots till she dies and throw players around like it’s just another day on the farm. New York Sirens fans should be excited to see what she can do and if she lives up to the more loft expectations, she’s going to make it hard for Team Canada to say no.

Honourable Mentions: Izzy Wunder, Kayle Osborne, Raygan Kirk, Avery Pickering, Ava Murphy

This article is already at 3,000 words and I’ve exhausted the list of players who have a realistic chance at making Team Canada for the 2026 Olympics. These honourable mentions can still make it, but the odds are stacked against them in a way that makes them far more likely for the 2030 Olympics than the 2026 Olympics. But it’s Still worth going over who the extreme long shots are to make Team Canada.

Izzy Wunder put her name in contention for a Team Canada spot with a huge year for Princeton University. The big 5’11” forward found instant chemistry with Mackenzie Alexander and put up 50 points, including 26 goals, in 32 games. If she can repeat this success next season, she’ll certainly get a look for Team Canada if even just for a potential PWHL sans World Championship roster. Kayle Osborne and Raygan Kirk had very good rookie PWHL seasons. Both have Team Canada credentials and been in the development program. The problem is that the Canadian goal crease is extremely crowded right now, to the point that Ève Gascon made the 2025 World Championship roster over both Osborne and Kirk.

As I mentioned in the Dayle Ross section, making Team Canada as someone with no World Championship experience or even PWHL experience is going to be nearly impossible. This is why I didn’t do a section for either Avery Pickering or Ava Murphy. They’re both very interesting players, as they’ve been impactful parts of successful programs, Pickering with Colgate and Murphy with Wisconsin. Both are headed into their third NCAA season with the ability to make their mark on the NCAA and earn a long look from Team Canada. There’s a good chance we’ll see them for the 2030 Olympics, but I’m sure their NCAA teams won’t mind them putting in extra effort trying to get a look for the 2026 Olympic roster.

I think that covers just about everyone who has even a semi-decent chance at going to Italy in 2026. Thanks for reading some of the first pieces of Team Canada and Olympic coverage from The Ice Garden. It’s going to be another fun and busy season ahead of us.

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