Hockey Canada announced Thursday the 25 players who will represent Canada at the upcoming 2021 IIHF Women’s World Championship from Aug. 20-31 at WinSport Arena at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.

The roster includes three goaltenders, seven defencemen and 15 forwards. Eight players (Victoria Bach, Ashton Bell, Kristen Campbell, Sarah Fillier, Emma Maltais, Kristin O’Neill, Ella Shelton and Claire Thompson) will make their world championship debuts.

The team was chosen by head coach Troy Ryan, alongside director of hockey operations Gina Kingsbury, management consultant Cassie Campbell-Pascall and the rest of the coaching staff from the 29 players chosen to centralize with Canada for the 2021-22 season leading up to the Olympics in Beijing.

All of those 29 players will resume training for Olympics after the conclusion of the world championship.

“It has been a challenging 16 months for our athletes and staff, but we have never lost sight of our goal of competing for a world championship on home ice,” said Kingsbury. “We have had few opportunities to train together as a group, but our training camp has been high tempo and competitive. We are confident in our group; we are a team full of skill, youth and veteran leadership that will give us the best chance to compete for a gold medal beginning Aug. 20.”

Canada will kick off the 10-team tournament with preliminary games in Group A against Finland (Aug. 20) ROC (Aug. 22), Switzerland (Aug. 24) and the United States (Aug. 26), all on TSN.

Goaltenders: Ann-Renée Desbiens, Emerance Maschmeyer, Kristen Campbell 

Defence: Jocelyne Larocque, Renata Fast, Ella Shelton, Ashton Bell, Erin Ambrose, Jaime Bourbonnais, Claire Thompson 

Forwards: Rebecca Johnston, Laura Stacey, Sarah Fillier, Jill Saulnier, Mélodie Daoust, Brianne Jenner, Sarah Nurse, Natalie Spooner, Emily Clark, Emma Maltais, Marie-Philip Poulin, Blayre Turnbull, Kristin O’Neill, Jamie Lee Rattray, Victoria Bach