Vancouver's New Goldeneyes Are Already Leaving A Lasting Impression

The Vancouver Goldeneyes and Ottawa Charge joined forces to complete the biggest trade in PWHL history on January 18, exchanging Michela Cava, Brooke McQuigge, and Emma Greco for Mannon McMahon, Anna Meixner, and Anna Shokhina. You’d think that it’d take a bit for these three new Vancouver players to fit into the lineup, given that they’re playing with a brand-new team and all — and yet, it already appears they’re fitting like a glove. 

Here’s the story behind these new Goldeneyes’ debuts. 

McMahon’s discovery that she’d been traded came at what she described as “funny timing.” The forward, who is good friends with Goldeneyes captain Ashton Bell and defender Nina Jobst-Smith, was preparing for Ottawa’s next match against the New York Sirens when she found out the news. 

“I was checking into my flight to go to New York, because that’s where Ottawa played,” she chuckled, recalling the memory after practice on Wednesday. 

While McMahon’s call came at an ironic time, she did note that the Goldeneyes’ organization made the transition “a lot easier.” Not only did she get traded alongside two Ottawa teammates, but she also had some familiar faces waiting for her in Vancouver in former Charge players as well as college friends. 

“Ashton [Bell] and Nina [Jobst-Smith] are some of my closest friends, so I’ve been in touch with them a lot over the season,” McMahon, who played at the University of Minnesota-Duluth alongside Bell and Jobst-Smith, explained.  

For McMahon’s Ottawa and now-Vancouver teammate, Meixner, the news came at a different time. The Austrian forward had been contemplating her choice for dinner when she found out the news. 

“I was sitting on my couch. I just came home from doing groceries, thinking about what I'm going to do for dinner, and then the message hit me,” she said. “It was definitely something that I did not see coming. But I guess that's a business, so I packed up my things and here I am.” 

The move to Vancouver didn’t come without support for Meixner, however, as the forward chuckled when recounting which member of the Goldeneyes reached out to her first. 

“A lot of players reached out to me [...] probably the last time it blew up like that was, I don't know, my birthday or something. I had so many unread messages. A lot of girls reached out to me, which I appreciated a lot.” 

Meixner hasn’t been in Vancouver for long, but already, the forward has found comfort in its landscape. Hailing from Zell Am See, a small mountainside town in Austria, the peaks of Grouse, Cypress, and Seymour were a welcome sight for Meixner, who’d caught a glimpse while at a new teammate’s place for dinner. 

“Looking at it was like home, the mountains,” she professed. “The ocean, the mountains, it felt like home for a bit. Just the variety of things you have here, it's like mountains, ocean, but also snow, no snow. It’s crazy. All the animals that you guys have here, it’s insane. I’m excited to explore everything.” 

The ‘no snow’ element was a common draw for Vancouver’s newcomers, as McMahon also mentioned it when discussing what she was most excited to experience while living in BC. 

“I feel like this city kind of offers everything — mountains, city life, the ocean, no snow. I’m excited about that. I’m looking forward to exploring a lot.” 

When talking about the intent behind this trade, Goldeneyes General Manager Cara Gardner Morey was quick to point out that, while they were near the bottom of the league, Vancouver wasn’t anywhere near out of the playoff picture. This was a move that needed to be made in order for the Goldeneyes to make that push throughout the second-half of the season. 

“When you’re building a team, there’s a lot of puzzle pieces, and we felt like we needed to bring in a little bit of a different puzzle piece in order to get everything clicking properly,” she explained on Tuesday during a media availability. “We still have really high goals, and there's a lot of the season left, so we felt like now is the time to make a change so we could start seeing the results that we know we can have.” 

McMahon and Shokhina started their careers as Goldeneyes off being eased into the game, as they were put together on Vancouver’s fourth line in their first game for the team. While they both logged limited minutes alongside linemate Malia Schneider, the two new Goldeneyes made their marks when they hit the ice. The speed that McMahon flashed during practices followed her to the Pacific Coliseum on Thursday night, where she seemed to skate fluidly up-and-down the ice. Shokhina made her presence known as well, registering two shots on goal. 

“I thought that it was pretty visible, the team speed and the increase in some of that allowed us to really forecheck pretty hard, which is something we’ve been working on a little bit,” Goldeneyes Head Coach Brian Idalski said of what Vancouver’s new players brought in their first game on Thursday. “The thing about them is the flexibility of the lineup; they can kind of plug in a lot of different spots. [I’m] looking forward to seeing what that looks like going forward, but I thought they did a great job after getting in a couple skates, and definitely brought some good energy for us.” 

Of the three players acquired in Vancouver’s blockbuster deal, it was Meixner who generated the most attention on Thursday. Alongside Gabby Rosenthal and Abby Boreen, Meixner made herself nice and comfortable in front of Sceptres goaltender Elaine Chuli all throughout the night. If any rebounds sprang free, you’d bet Meixner would be in position to try and poke them into the back of the net. 

“She’s heavy on the forecheck. She makes little slip plays, little chips. I think she’s just hard on pucks. We need to be better playing at the blue lines, the red lines, and getting pucks in. I think that she really does that. She’s a bit of a sparkplug on that third line with Gabby and Bobo, and I’ve really liked what I’ve seen from her so far,” Sarah Nurse said of her new teammate post-game.  

The Goldeneyes have two more games left before the PWHL pauses for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Eight members of the team will head to Italy to take part in the winter games, while the remainder of the roster will have some time off before resuming practice throughout February. For a team that has been traveling more often than not, this long stretch of time to hammer out the small details in a casual practice setting will be extremely valuable. For McMahon, Meixner, and Shokhina, the time in Vancouver will be integral in continuing to gel within the Goldeneyes organization. 

“I think this is probably one of the most important games coming up, the next three [two as of writing], because this is how we’re going to go in the break,” Meixner explained prior to Thursday’s game. “I think leaving everything we have out there for the next [two] games, we see where we stand after, and then go into the break, everyone resets and comes back — it’s a long season.”