Rachel Llanes was developed in San Jose. After a nine-year professional career and an Olympic appearance, the newest PWHL team feels like a full circle opportunity.
Rachel Llanes left professional hockey right before the PWHL got its start. After three years coaching, she hasn’t given up on making a comeback, especially now that her hometown is in the mix.
Llanes, who hails from San Jose, spent her NCAA career at Northeastern University, where she finished with 102 points off 41 goals and 61 assists. She was drafted to the CWHL’s Boston Blades for two seasons before moving to the NWHL’s Boston Pride from 2014 to 2016. A decade before the PWHL became a reality, Llanes was playing for a salary she called “great for gas" while also working a full-time job.
“Now, [the PWHL] girls will never experience that, which is good,” Llanes said, “but it was quite the experience paving the way for them.”
It was a period when women’s hockey players could only dream of going Division-1 and the Olympics. Llanes achieved both.
In 2017, she began playing on a Chinese CWHL team, the Kunlun Red Star. She stayed in China playing for several teams before appearing in the 2022 Olympic Games with Team China. She spent another year playing with Team China at World Championships before it felt natural to take a break.
Rachel Llanes“I think when you play pro hockey for a long time and you reach your goal of being an Olympian, you have a little bit of time to actually think about what you did,” Llanes said, “like what I had accomplished in the last nine years and [I] had to just take a step back and breathe for a second, appreciate what I had just gone through and also just understand how much I had to sacrifice up until that point.”
Llanes never planned on giving up playing, but she knew her mental health required a break. Two months after the Olympics, she stepped up as the first female head strength and conditioning coach at the San Jose Barracudas while still training as if she were a professional player. In the mornings, before the team would come in, she would train on the ice, and in the afternoons and evenings, she would focus on off-ice conditioning.
Now she wants her shot at the PWHL as a free agent.
“I'm ready to come back mentally. I've never been this strong and ready,” Llanes said. “I'm training as if [I’m] going to get a call tomorrow and [I] need to play in a game.”
As someone who’s had to adapt to plenty of new teams and make herself valuable season after season, Llanes sees herself as a necessary role player for the young league. She also prides herself as an assertive communicator, something that's only improved in her experience as a coach.
“As a vet, you just want to fill a role because there are young kids coming into the league,” she said. “Everyone has speed. Everyone has their own type of skill, but not everyone is willing to adapt their game.”
She's prepared for the physicality the new league requires and has focused on speed and strength, given her 5'3 stature.
"On the ice, pure speed and physicality and energy," Llanes explained. "That's what I've always brought.
Llanes’ hometown of San Jose is now set to be the next PWHL expansion team. It’s something she’s still in “disbelief” over.
“[San Jose] is not a hockey town. This is not like you're full of hockey resources,” she said. “I take a lot of pride in just helping the next generation figure it out and also show them that coming from San Jose, coming from a non-hockey town, you can still go as high as you want to go.”
The opportunity to join a league she was never able to dream about as a girl in San Jose is finally here. Llanes is ready.
“I never left. My mentality has never changed.”