Sarah Fillier knows this will be a unique hockey season. What isn't unique is her expectation for excellence in the PWHL and gold at the 2026 Olympics with Canada.
Few things are familiar about the upcoming hockey season for Sarah Fillier. She'll be returning to the PWHL's New York Sirens, but with a largely revamped roster of new players. She'll also be entering her first professional season that coincides with an Olympic year. That will be followed by a new timeline for the World Championships.
What remains constant is Fillier's golden aspirations.
Fillier, the PWHL's reigning Rookie of the Year and co-leading scorer after being selected first overall at the 2024 draft, knows how important the year ahead is for herself, and the sport she loves, which is why she's dedicated her offseason to peaking at the right moments.
"I think it's going to be huge," said Fillier of the season ahead. "I think the timing is pretty interesting too with the Olympics coming in and Rivalry Series and obviously our league getting started here in November. For me it's placed so much emphasis on the offseason and building a pretty long runway up until February and November training camps. It's just really been about dialling in different things in my game, intentionally working on things this summer with the ultimate goal of being the best player I can be for New York and Canada."
The 25-year-old has made an impact on and off the ice. Not only has she twice been named a World Championship All-Star and 2023 World MVP, but she's got an Olympic gold medal to her name from 2022, and continues to break barriers for visibility including inking several major endorsement deals with companies like Gatorade prior to turning pro.
This year, Fillier hopes to lean on the adaptability she's learned from the ever changing women's hockey landscape. This year those changes will include the new international schedule, Olympic break, lack of centralization for Canada's national team, and new travel demands taking PWHL teams to the West Coast to face expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver.
"As hockey players, especially in women's hockey, we've been so used to the unexpected in a new league, and during COVID, I think we're all pretty well versed in how to deal with adapting to new situations," said Fillier.
Welcoming New Challenges In The PWHL
The addition of two new teams in the PWHL, which shuffled PWHL rosters in the offseason, is a factory Fillier is watching this season. She's focused on staying healthy, and finding new chemistry with incoming players on the Sirens' roster. New York saw veterans including Alex Carpenter, Jessie Eldridge, Corinne Schroeder, Ella Shelton, and Abby Roque depart this offseason, and in their place they brought in first overall pick Kristyna Kaltounkova, Patty Kazmaier winner Casey O'Brien, 9th overall selection Anne Cherskowski, and Canadian teammate Kristin O'Neill.
"I think expansion is amazing for this league getting a coast to coast league going," said Fillier.
"I think Seattle and Vancouver are amazing cities to have teams out there and the excitement around those teams has been amazing to see already. As players, I don't think we're too stressed about the travel. At the end of the day we want to be pro hockey players and it's all part of the gig. When I think about it I can't wait to get out to Vancouver and see the crowd out there, and to Seattle."
With so many new faces in New York, it puts Fillier in the unique position of immediately becoming a veteran on the roster. She anticipates this season will not feel too out of the ordinary for New York's young roster, who are used to working with large groups of new players every season in the NCAA>
"There's been a lot of shake up throughout the whole league, especially in New York," she said. "It's exciting. It kind of feels a little bit like college almost when you have a few people stick around, but then you get a huge new class of first years. It's something I'm somewhat, relatively not too far removed from at Princeton and helping a new group jump on our bandwagon and be part of the New York culture and hopefully that experience will help a lot. It's hard not to be excited when you look at our draft class when you look at our draft class and you see how much speed and skill they bring. I think it blends right in with my game, and I think it will be a good transition for them."
Facing Familiar Faces As New Foes
When Fillier returns to the ice this season with the New York Sirens, she'll see a large contingent of players she's trained with for months this summer as a member of Canada's national team pool. They'll be familiar faces, but largely as foes in the PWHL.
Fillier sees it as another opportunity to push herself, and her Canadian teammates as they collaboratively, yet separately, prepare for the Olympics.
"It's definitely a pretty interesting dynamic, for all of us we've recognized it," said FIllier. "I think at the end of the day it's just going make us play a lot harder against each other and compete as hard as we can against those players. At the end of the day that's our time to get our game to the best it can be to hopefully win a gold medal in Milan and I think we'd really be doing a disservice to each other if we weren't going 100% against our hopefully future teammates in the pro league kind of leading up to things."
"Training Group Looks Awesome"
Canada's training roster ahead of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics sits at 30 players. Fillier believes the group there is rounding into shape. They've already training together in Calgary, followed by a block in Toronto, and are about to enter their final block ahead of the Rivalry Series and PWHL season in Montreal.
"It's been awesome to be at the last couple training blocks," said Fillier. "It's been a long offseason so everyone at Canada's camp is ready to go. We have a lot less time together as a group of Team Canada to spend so everyone is really dialled in and intentional when we're at these camps and I think it only helps everyone get really excited about the possibility of representing Canada at the Olympics."
When we leave those camps and spend some time away from each other it's kind of fuelling the fire for everyone," she continued. "I think the training group looks awesome right now. It will be great to compete against each other in this league and help push each other in that way."
While Canada and Fillier won gold at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, they fell to the USA in the most recent World Championships in Czechia. That loss has served as motivation for Fillier and Canada as they chase Walter Cup hopes in the PWHL, and gold medal dreams in Italy.
"Even in a normal year not coming home with gold at a World Championship is something you spend a lot of time reflecting on and it definitely drives your offseason training going into next season," she said. "We're definitely not satisfied coming home with silver, it's really just pushed us a little bit more this summer to be ready to go and performing at 100% in Milan."