Inside Canada’s Olympic Selection Process

When Hockey Canada finalized its women’s hockey roster for the 2026 Olympic Games, the announcement was the endpoint of a process that had been unfolding for months — a series of conversations, debates, and, eventually, phone calls that carried significant emotional weight.

Both head coach Troy Ryan and general manager Gina Kingsbury emphasized the collective nature of the process, involving the full coaching and management staff not only in evaluating players, but in delivering the decisions themselves.

“I don’t think anybody can truly imagine how difficult some of those calls are, unless you’re actually on it,” Ryan said. 

“You have to understand, when you’re debating players, there’s an impact. You are taking away someone’s opportunity that they’ve dreamed about their whole life sometimes. If you never actually have to be around to deliver those messages, you don’t fully understand how much it’s impacting — and you also don’t see the positive, how much it means to some people to be named.”

Kingsbury took the lead on many of the difficult calls, a role Ryan said carried a lot of complexity. As a former player who had been on the receiving end of disappointing Olympic conversations, she was now responsible for delivering them.

“That’s not easy,” Ryan said. “She’s been in those conversations as an athlete and had a GM and a coach tell her she wasn’t going to the Olympics. To now be in that position, knowing what it felt like for you as an athlete but now being the one delivering those messages — that’s a confusing place. That can be difficult.”

Ryan said Kingsbury's handling of those calls was “direct and clear,” and that other staff members were involved where relationships already existed.

“If any of the other staff members felt they had a good connection or relationship, or if it would mean something to them to deliver the message, we asked them to do it.”

Several notable omissions included 19-year-old defender Chloe Primerano, who many expected to be part of the roster. 

“She’s an incredible athlete with an incredible future,” Kingsbury said. “She will be part of this team in the future, without a doubt — I say that with as much confidence as I possibly can.”

“We focused on the pieces that we needed to be able to compete at these Games, and in the end we felt another defender gave us more options in terms of what we needed for that identity at this point. The puzzle we needed to put together had another D in there.”

Another player not selected was Hannah Miller, who represented China at the last Olympic Games. Kingsbury confirmed that Miller is eligible to play for Canada and that eligibility was not a factor in her non-selection.

“She is eligible to play for Canada and unfortunately didn’t make our team — not based on those premises,” she said.

“We had 30 great athletes put their best foot forward and had to name 23. As we were putting the puzzle together, someone else fit the puzzle better than Hannah.”

When the calls were made to those who made the team, the emotional response was consistent across the board, relief as much as excitement.

Kingsbury said, “We had all of our coaches on the call, which was really great. Some of them were surprised by the amount of emotion — even from athletes going to their fifth Olympics. It just shows the meaning of what the Olympic Games are to these athletes, and the meaning of representing Canada.”

Kingsbury said the staff repeatedly returned to practical, situational questions: Who could play where if something went wrong? Who could move to a different role mid-game? Who filled specific needs in specific moments?

“Troy always has clever ways of doing strategy thinking,” she said. “We’d look at charts and ask, ‘Would you play this player in this situation? What about that situation?’ At some point, some players separated themselves, knowing we had a little bit more versatility with them.”

That emphasis on versatility, Kingsbury said, became especially important given the realities of a short-term tournament.

“In the event someone gets injured on the right side, we can put this athlete there. We might need this player for the shootout,” she said. “The last few decisions were geared toward making sure we had the right pieces in different scenarios and situations once the games start.”

Veteran defender Jocelyne Larocque was a surprise selection for many who predicted the team would lean on younger players.

Kingsbury said with Larocque, "We know what we're going to get. She's hard to play against. She defends extremely well. She's got a shut-down approach. I don't know if there's anyone that does that better than her, so she ended up being the D that we needed to be the shut-down D that she is"

Ryan also shared a special significance for two players to make the team.

"Julia Gosling and Kristin O'Neill were two athletes that weren't named last time but went to Beijing," Ryan explained.

"And not a lot of people know this: they went to Beijing, isolated in a hotel for pretty much a month, with no access to anybody, weren't allowed to see us, weren't allowed to practice with us. And they just sat and waited in case someone got hurt.

"So they don't get the jersey. They don't get named. They don't get any of the recognition. So to be able to be on a phone call to, give them the news [that they made the team] that stuck with us."

Ryan emphasized that neither player changed how they approached the program in the years that followed.

“K.O. [O’Neill] has not changed one percent,” he said. “She was like, ‘This is who I am. This is what I do. Either you pick it or you don’t.’ She never took it personal. Same with Gosling. She never made it personal with me. The next time I saw her, it was, ‘Let’s move forward. What are we going to do?’ That takes a mature person.”

Kingsbury said the PWHL played a significant role in allowing the staff to evaluate players in roles they might not otherwise have seen within the national team structure.

“It’s almost a double-edged sword,” she said. “Sometimes you want an athlete who’s always in one role with their club to play something different with us. But the PWHL has allowed us to see athletes in different situations — and when you see they can bring offense or scale up in that capacity, that matters.”

Ryan noted that no formal standby list was established, describing any potential replacement decision as situational rather than predetermined.

“It’s much like any team for a short-term event,” he said. “If someone was unable to participate, the group would get back together and decide who fits that potential hole.”

That same clarity extended to conversations with Sarah Nurse. Ryan said Kingsbury was direct with Nurse about expectations.

“You don’t want to dull the moment, the excitement,” he said. “But Gina was very clear — not only does she have to be ready to compete at the Olympic Games, she has to be ready to have an impact. Sarah fully understood that.”

The staff, he added, remains in regular contact with the medical teams of both the PWHL and Hockey Canada.

When it came to Natalie Spooner, both Ryan and Kingsbury were careful to describe her inclusion in terms of her role and identity rather than past production.

“If people are going to analyze the selection, they might think we’re expecting the Spooner of old,” Ryan said. “We’re not. And that’s okay. She’s going to play a unique role, and we think she’s set up for success in that role.”

Kingsbury described Spooner as fitting the core identity of the group.

“Our athletes truly know what the meaning of the Olympic Games is,” she said. “They care about one another. They’re emotional about representing Canada. In a short-term event, with that kind of raw emotion and a group that wants to link arms, that’s hard to stop.”

For Ryan, the lasting impression of the selection process wasn’t tied to a single name on the list, but to the experience of going through it together.

“We’ll remember some of those calls our whole life,” he said.

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