Audrey-Anne Veillette will miss training camp with an injury, but the PWHL Ottawa pick is looking like a safe bet for future success.
Audrey-Anne Veillette will miss training camp with an injury, but the PWHL Ottawa pick is looking like a safe bet for future success.
Nearly 100 players were drafted into the PWHL last month, but Ottawa’s 22-year-old draft pick, Audrey-Anne Veillette stood out on two fronts.
For starters, Veillette was the only U Sports athlete without professional experience to be selected in the draft, a remarkable accomplishment considering the wealth of talent south of the border.
“People will say that NCAA is better, and we can see in the stats that I am the only player coming off a U-sport season, but I would say keep working hard and don’t think about all the things you cannot control because you can control your performance, your attitude and how hard you're working," said Veillette. "And if you do that well, they won't ignore you.”
If that’s not enough to separate Veillette from the pack, the 22-year-old center was also the only player with a known injury to be drafted. “We had informed every team to let them know of my injury,” she said. “So I wasn't sure if I would be selected because of it.” When she finally heard her name called, going 89th overall to Ottawa, Veillette said she “Couldn’t have been happier.”
To pigeonhole Veillette as someone merely “beating the odds” seems almost dismissive. Given her track record, she might have been a steal for Ottawa. The athlete has a silver medal from the 2017 IIHF Under-18 Women's World Championships and a bronze from 2018. She scored the game-winning goal for Canada in the 2023 Winter Universiade gold medal game against Japan and had had a standout season with her university team, Les Carabins, at the University of Montreal, earning five hat tricks, seven game-winning goals, and finished second in U Sports points with 26 goals in 22 games.
Although her injury has changed Veillete’s day-to-day training, she continues to stay busy, whether that’s with school, work or rehabbing. “Right now, I'm just focusing on what I can do to get better and come back to as fast as possible,” said Veillette, “You have to stay positive. Rehab is always tough, and there's a lot of pain. So, it's easy to fall into a negative mindset. But, I mean, I have my friends, I have my family, and I have Ottawa. So this is the best-case scenario for me.”
Although Veillette won’t be on the ice for Ottawa’s training camp starting Nov. 15— she will have familiar faces greeting her, such as former Team Canada camp roommate and Olympian Emily Clark, 56th overall pick and former Harvard Captain Kristin Della Rovere, and past U-18 teammate and Patty Kazmaier Award winner Daryl Watts who went 32nd overall in the draft. The camp will consist of a mix of free-agent signings, draft picks and undrafted players.
When asked about her future goals with the team, Veillette answered, “Hopefully, I'm going to stay in Ottawa. I want to be a huge key to the team's success, and I want to do everything I can to be one of the leaders. And even though I'm going to be the youngest, my goal is to come in and be a leader for the team and just show the example by working hard and having a good attitude. So in a couple of years, I want to be that Emily Clark or that Brianne Jenner.”
Although her return to play timeline still remains unknown, there is no doubt that Veillette will leave her mark in Ottawa in the coming years.