Stacey details journey from healthy scratch to key contributor at Women’s Worlds

Laura Stacey’s journey to being one of the premier power forwards in women’s hockey has been filled with epic highs and lows. 

The highs feature winning an Olympic gold medal in 2022, three World Championship titles and being one of the first three players signed by Montreal when the Professional Women’s Hockey League was founded in 2023.

The lows include breaking both her wrists at the same time in her final NCAA game at Dartmouth and the disappointment of not getting a lot of playing time for Team Canada earlier in her national team career. 

Now 30, Stacey has blossomed into a top player in the PWHL with the Victoire, seeing top-line minutes alongside teammate and wife Marie-Philip Poulin, with who she tied the knot in September of 2024. 

In her second PWHL season, Stacey had 10 goals and 20 points in 24 games before heading to her seventh Women’s World Championship in Czechia. She credits the maturation process for her current success as a player.  

“Honestly, a lot of people tell me I’m a completely different player and I do believe that to some extent, but I don’t think it has anything to do with skill,” Stacey told TSN. “Of course I worked on a lot of things, of course I’ve spent way more hours on the ice and have got to play with and against some amazing people that have pushed me, but I would say I’m more a different player just because I’ve matured. I’ve grown up.”

Team Canada forwards Blayre Turnbull and Emma Maltais both play for the PWHL’s Toronto Sceptres and have been on the opposing side several times the past two years with the task of trying to stop Stacey.  

“It's a challenge,” said Turnbull. “She's relentless with her work ethic and her commitment to winning battles and to getting the puck to the net. So, as someone who often has to try to shut that down, it can be very challenging at times. She's someone, as everyone knows, if you watch a PWHL game that she's in, her speed is incredible. So, trying to match her speed and her work ethic is definitely a challenge, but I always find it really fun.”

“I think also her ability to take control of a game, take the puck from end to end and maintain possession of it, is a really big quality,” said Maltais. “She's scary whenever she has the puck.” 

Despite making seven straight Worlds rosters and the past two Olympic teams, Stacey admits she still gets nervous when a new Canadian roster is about to drop.

Stacey’s first few experiences playing at the Women’s Worlds did not go how she wanted. She debuted in 2017 and did not register a point in five games as Canada went home with silver. In 2019, she had three points in seven games, but Canada had a program-low result of bronze.  

Fast forward to 2021 when Canada rose up to win gold at the Worlds for the first time since 2012, Stacey was in the stands as a healthy scratch and appeared in just one game the entire tournament.  

“Making the senior team is quite the jump,” said Stacey. “I think  when you’re a young kid you just think, ‘Okay I’m going to make the U18 team, I’m going to make the development team and then I’m going to make the senior team’ and I think there was quite a bit of a news flash to me when that linear progression got halted quite a few times and you don’t know what the difference is. You don’t know what that next step looks like, but you see other people making it.”

Canadian national team head coach Troy Ryan remember having a lot of frank conversations with Stacey about where she belonged on the team.

“I give her a lot of credit for actually just taking the time to meet with me, to share some of her thoughts,” said Ryan. “And I know she went through a hard journey herself in trying to navigate where she fits on the national-team level.  

“I don't think, me as a coach, but her as an athlete, if we ever get to the point where we are today right now in our coach-athlete relationship, if Laura doesn't take the time to have those tough conversations and try to get an idea where I may be thinking or where our staff may be thinking and where she believes she could be as an athlete.” 

Stacey says it started by focusing on being the best forechecker on the team with eyes on eventually being the best penalty killer. She had her best World Championship outing offensively last year, with two goals and three assists in seven games as Canada won gold.

Maltais, who was also on that gold-medal winning roster in 2024, counts Stacey as one of her best friends and has matching tattoos with her and forward Jill Saulnier after the trio played together at the 2022 Olympics. As one of the younger players who made the senior team for the first time in 2021, she says Stacey is a role model.  

“Laura is one of the more resilient people that I've met,” said Maltais. “I think her experience – she's really had to battle back to become who she wants to be. And I think that's what makes her such an inspiring role model for a lot of us. I think the way she carries herself on a daily basis, she's not arrogant. She doesn't expect anything to come to her. She just does it. And I think those years of adversity for her definitely shaped her into who she was.” 

Despite all the trials and tribulations, Stacey doesn't take her success for granted and is not content to rest on her laurels. 

“It definitely wasn’t a linear, easy path but I think all of us can kind of relate to that,” said Stacey. “There’s ups and downs, there’s broken bones, there’s heartache, there’s getting cut, there’s all of those in between. But I think once you have that spark, once you have that feeling of ‘Oh my gosh there’s so much possible here’ I think it just keeps driving you and pushing you forward.”