USA Hockey is leaving Hockey Canada stuck in the snow when it comes to girls and women's hockey. USA Hockey has surpassed Canada in growth and development, and the results are showing on the international stage. For years, Canada relied on sheer volume and the pocketed efforts of individual programs and coaches to develop the next generation of stars. If enough players registered, eventually, a star would emerge.

USA on the other hand, has worked to actively identify top players from all corners of the nation, and brings them together each year to provide them with resources, education, training, and coaching related not only to on-ice skills, but to age-specific nutrition, strength, and mental aspects. They do it on the ice, they do it in the classroom, they do it through video, and they do it in the gym. And they do it much sooner than Canada, giving their players the resources and support they need sooner.

For American players, it all starts at USA Hockey’s Player Development Camps. On the women's side, these camps begin with 15-year-olds, and they run through their U-18 and U-19 campaigns, through USA Hockey's Collegiate Select program, and into their national team. It's a streamlined, coordinated effort to bring along the best and brightest.

Nationally, USA Hockey this year brought 216 players born in the 2011 birth year, including 120 forwards, 72 defenders, and 24 goalies, together for six days in Oxford, Ohio. At the 2009 and 2010 camp there were 170 players.

In Canada, 2011 born players aren't brought in to compete for Canada's U-18 national team or at the national camp, and aside from some provincial camps, are left out of Canada's model on a national scale completely.

The restriction on 15-year-old players has kept some of Canada's top players, like Chloe Primerano in the past, and this year Isla McCoubrey from benefitting from resources and training, and it almost cost the nation Adrianna Milani two summers ago when she played for Team USA at the summer select series because Canada would not allow her to participate. This season, McCoubrey is Canada's best U-18 forward alongside Milani, but she won't be on the ice.

USA brought together 216 players born in 2011, 107 from 2010, and 87 from 2009. Each one of those is more than the total number of players Canada will bring to their U-18 national camp, which will include zero from 2011, and only a handful of 2010 and 2009 players. 

Canada's U-18 national team camp had only four 2009 born goaltenders, none from 2010 or 2011. There were five 2010 born defenders and seven from 2009, and up front they brought nine 2010 forwards and 15 from 2010. USA Hockey knows the bulk of the players they bring to camp won't progress, but they give them a look, they give them a chance, and more importantly, they give them the resources to go home and improve before they return the following year.

USA has seen the opportunity, and adapted to lead their program to a better position. Canada has ignored the changes to the game, and continues to allow their best young prospects to drift without direction.

According to Kristen Sagaert, USA Hockey director of girls' hockey, the development opportunity for girls in the United States through their Development Camps, and the boost they receive through USA Hockey's model has been clear.

“On the girls' side, specifically, we have over 400 players at our national camp between the three camps,” Sagaert said. “The resources and the coaching available for those athletes have grown every year. We always try to see where we can improve and provide benefits and resources to those players, both on and off the ice. Now, we have strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, team coaches, intern coaches, equipment managers, video coaches.”

“We have nutrition demos where they make a recipe with our nutritionists,” Sagaert continued. “They have strength and conditioning seminars. They also have strength and conditioning in the weight room. It's a combination of both on- and off-ice development during the week. They play games. They practice.”

While Canada has this, to a point, it's done differently in each province, and the head-to-head ability to face the best for Canada's next generation of players is reserved to 46 players, leaving behind many who may not have been able to showcase themselves against other top players, and also keeping key development opportunities from players who may have been able to flourish with the resources gained at camps like USA Hockey's.

“They're provided with some information and resources on what it will potentially take for them to reach their goals in hockey, whether that be collegiately or with one of our national teams,” said Sagaert. “They learn about the culture. They learn what it takes. They get to meet current and former Olympians while they're at camp and just kind of have that first tiptoe into it. Every single one of the athletes that was on our Olympic roster has been at a player development camp on the girls' side.”

Canada's top prospects are missing years of development opportunities, mentorship, resources, and the ability to gain crucial measuring stick moments against the best in the nation. The national program, from the U-18 level to the senior national team, are sacrificing crucial development opportunities and identification opportunities without reason. Hockey Canada not only excludes many teens from their development offerings on the girls side, but they also exclude any girl or woman who has made the decision to play boys' hockey despite the fact they're still registered in a Hockey Canada program. This year it mean's Canada's U-18 national team will play without Sophie Jovanovic, who is arguably the top goaltender in her 2009 age group, because she's playing U-18 'AAA' boys' hockey in the GTHL with the Toronto Marlboros.

At national level camps for U-15, U-16, and U-17 players, perhaps the biggest thing Canadian players are missing is the opportunity to be scouted. USA Hockey's decision to bring all players together comes as a massive boost to the future prospects of those players. At those camps, the stands are filled with NCAA recruiters looking to fill their rosters. In Canada, those recruiters must work significantly harder, and hope those players make U-18 provincial teams, or are at a handful of showcase tournaments. Outside of Ontario, those opportunities significantly limit the ability of players to be recruited before roster spots fill, and teams scoop the best American players.

Having no national level camps bringing together Canada's top players in the season before they're able to begin committing to NCAA programs is a massive hinderance to the future prospects of Canadian girls and women's hockey players.

Coupled with a significantly later start to Canada's centralized development efforts, and it's clear why USA Hockey is producing more NCAA calibre players, more PWHL Draft picks, and better national team talent than Canada. 

Looking at the 2026 Olympics, USA Hockey identified their best and brightest years ago. The cohort approaching USA's U-18 team that included Laila Edwards, Caroline Harvey, Tessa Janecke, Kirsten Simms, Abbey Murphy and others, were nourished and mentored. The result was nine of 12 first round picks in the 2026 PWHL Draft coming from the United States compared to two from Finland and one from Canada, and an Olympic gold medal.