PWHL draft night, Jenna Goodwin was clutching her phone and fighting bad service on a long drive through rural Canada. The light chatter that passed the time through most of the tenuous draft process dissolved when the Boston Fleet went to announce their fourth pick of the night.

“We were just sitting there, like, ‘Please, please, please,” Goodwin said. “We were just crossing our fingers.” 

On the long car ride to Saskatchewan on PWHL Draft night, her wishes came true.  Goodwin was selected in the fifth round, 58th overall in the 2026 PWHL Draft by the Boston Fleet.

“I just like started screaming,” she said. “It was just a gong show.”

Goodwin’s close friend Haley Winn was named rookie of the year following a season with the Fleet, and her Alberta training partner and teammate since she was 14-years-old, Jaden Bogden, was Boston’s third draft pick. After a year spent in Sweden with Frölunda HC, reuniting with her two former Clarkson University teammates felt too perfect.

Winn called right away, “She was crying, and I was crying,” Goodwin remembered. Bogden was texting her all night, “She was like, ‘No way, this is crazy.’”

“I honestly couldn't be more happy,” Goodwin said. “It was a really emotional but surreal feeling. And genuinely, I was quite shocked, which I think made it even more exciting.”

Goodwin’s first ice sport was ringette, which she played for two years before transitioning to hockey at 10-years-old. She stuck to local Alberta teams through middle and high school, including the St. Albert Slash with Bogden. In 2021, she moved to Potsdam, New York to play for Clarkson sight unseen. While she majored in biology, thinking she could go into healthcare and pursue her interest in nutrition, the moment the PWHL debuted, all bets were off. 

“I was like, 'Sign me up.' Like, that's what I wanted to do for as long as possible,” she said.

In her four years at Clarkson, she scored 34 goals and 37 assists. Coach Matt Desrosiers described her as one of the fastest Clarkson players in program history. After her senior year, she undeclared from the 2025 PWHL draft to play with Frölunda HC in Sweden instead. 

The Swedish league was her first time playing full-contact, and at the start she “kind of hated it.”

“In college, I could do four cutbacks in a corner and I would make my way to the net. But if you do that in Sweden, like you are just getting crushed on the boards,” she said.

She began using her speed to navigate the physicality, changing her game to get herself out of those corners. It was a good entry point to the professional side of the sport. 

“I'm excited to have that experience of that physicality,” Goodwin said, “especially [since] I'm not a huge player, so I think that was really beneficial for me.”

Due to the time difference, it was hard to catch all of the Fleet games, but Goodwin would always watch Winn if she could. The close friendship has given her more insight into the Boston team.

"Their team is so strong with their culture and their locker room," Goodwin said. "She's like, 'You're gonna love it so much.'" 

In the time before she heads to Beantown, she and Bogden can be found back home training together in Alberta, just like they have ever since they were in junior high. But come November, the sea of green and blue fans greeting them will look a little different from Alberta's midget league. 

“It almost feels like just not real, like I haven't wrapped my head around it,” Goodwin said.