Goldeneyes draftee Ashley Messier has many connections to the PWHL team that selected her 61st-overall in the 2026 Draft.
Vancouver Goldeneyes head coach Cara Gardner Morey couldn’t contain her excitement when defender Ashley Messier slid to the team in the sixth-round of the 2026 PWHL Entry Draft.
Gardner Morey, who spent 14 seasons as the head coach of Princeton University in the NCAA before heading to the PWHL, encountered Messier plenty of times during collegiate competition. The defender, who was selected 61st-overall by Vancouver in this year’s draft, played at Cornell University for four seasons before moving to the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2025–26.
Messier and Gardner Morey’s paths crossed frequently as friendly adversaries in NCAA competition. Now, pending the results of the Goldeneyes’ training camp in the fall, they’ll be looking to tackle the PWHL as allies.
“Honestly, could not believe that Messier was there in the sixth,” Gardner Morey, who was still Vancouver’s General Manager at the time, said in a post-draft media availability at the end of June. “The fact that she was there in the sixth, I kept sitting at the table, being like, ‘be there, be there, be there’.”
“They were a rival of ours for a long time, and she’s a very intense, strong woman, and really a good role model to look up to,” Messier added of the Goldeneyes’ new head coach in an interview at Hockey Canada’s Development Camp. “She’s been really great throughout this process. I’m really excited to get to know her more, and very honoured that she saw something in me and wanted me to be a part of her program.”
But what is it about Messier that drew Gardner Morey to the defender?
“She doesn’t play a small game. I coached against her for four years when she was at Cornell. She always gave us trouble. Great skating, good heads-up D, she’s gonna fit in well.”
Messier describes her style of play similarly.
“I’m a smart player. That’s my kind of thing — that’s my M.O. I have a good hockey IQ, and I can move my feet really well. I can skate well, and I like to think I’m a reliable defender, but that’s not just my entire role. I’m a good 200-foot player, getting pucks out of our zone, strong first passes, and just timing the game well.”
It’s these skills that helped Messier end up as one of the three defenders selected by the Goldeneyes in this year’s draft. She noted how special — but nerve-wracking — the day itself was before she’d heard her name called.
“Obviously everyone’s a bundle of nerves going into that, but it was a lot of time with my family in the morning,” she said. “It was a pretty long event, so we hung out there for five-ish hours, and it was really cool. Such a beautiful venue. I’d never been there before, so it was great.”
The day’s festivities also included familiarizing herself with her fellow Goldeneyes draftees and their families over appetizers, though for a couple that she’d already known beforehand, no extra introduction was needed.
“I graduated with Thea Johansson at UMD this past year, and she was there, which is really special as well. And then I also played with KK [Harvey] in high school, and it was really nice to get to see her again and meet the other girls. They were all really great, and it’s really exciting.”
Messier’s connections to the Goldeneyes organization don’t stop there, however, as she’s also a long-time friend and ex-college roommate of recently-extended forward Izzy Daniel. Daniel also spent the bulk of her collegiate career at Cornell, with the two alumni spending three years together as teammates.
“I see her pretty frequently throughout the summer,” Messier said. “I got to talk with her right after [the draft] happened. She gave me a call, and it was really really special.”
Messier’s connection to Western Canada as a whole, being from the west, only helped make her experience at Canada’s National Development Team Camp even more special.
“It was really cool. I was really excited too that the camp would be here. I’m from Western Canada, but I haven’t been back to Vancouver since I was maybe 10 years old.”
While the defender was ineligible to represent her team during Canada’s three-game Summer Series against Team USA due to having graduated from college in 2026, she noted how special taking part in the camp was — and what she wanted to take away from the entire experience itself.
“This is really an opportunity where they put a lot of time and effort and resources into us, and it’s a privilege, and we get everything we could possibly need, and just treated like real professionals with the best of the best, and that’s what I’m looking forward to is getting to live that every day and have packed days. It’s busy and it’s hard, but it’s a lot of fun, and it’s really a huge honour.”
With her time at Canada’s 2026 camp now finished, the next step for Messier will be eyeing a spot on Vancouver’s blueline come the start of the 2026–27 PWHL season.
