BRAMPTON, ONT. • Halfway through the scoreless first period of Canada’s opening game at the IIHF Women’s World Championship, the home team forced a turnover in the Swiss end. The puck squirted out of the corner and on to the stick of Natalie Spooner in the slot.
Spooner took the puck with her back to the net, turned and fired it past goaltender Andrea Braendli.
A routine play for the three-time Olympic gold medallist. It was the 32-year-old’s 67th goal for Team Canada.
It was her first as a mother.
“I think I blacked out when I scored, but all the girls said the crowd was going wild,” Spooner said afterward. “To get that first one was pretty special.”
As this tournament began, Spooner’s story was both remarkable and a bit of a curiosity. She gave birth to her son, Rory, in early December, four months ago almost to the day of the tournament opener. She was included on the initial team roster last month, but she had played just a handful of games since the Beijing Olympics. It was easy to imagine a scenario where she was around the team for leadership and vibes, but didn’t see much of the ice.
She saw plenty of it in the opener against Switzerland on Wednesday. Her goal loosened up what had been a nervy start for the Canadians, and they took it over from that point on, rolling to a comfortable 4-0 win. At the start of the second period, Spooner found Jamie Lee Rattray in front of goal from the corner before Rebecca Johnston scooped in the eventual rebound, giving the new mom an assist and a two-point night.
Asked post-game what she thought of Spooner’s night, Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin touched her hand to the brim of her red Hockey Canada cap.
“I tip my hat to her, it’s amazing,” Poulin said with a grin. “You could see our reaction on the bench, we were all so happy for her. It’s not an easy role for her, but the way she’s handling it, the work she’s put in, having little Rory with us, it’s quite amazing.”
Troy Ryan, Canada’s head coach, called Spooner’s comeback performance incredible. “Actually, it’s been a lot of fun for our team and our staff having little Rory around with us everywhere we go,” he said. “It’s special for our team and obviously special for her and her family.”
But how has she done this, exactly?
Spooner says she knew that she and husband Adam Redmond wanted to start a family after Beijing in February of 2022. The pregnancy came quickly — you can do the math here — and so she knew that it might be possible to return to the national team in advance of the World Championship being played on home ice, and close to her hometown of Toronto.
“Obviously there were so many unknowns,” Spooner says of the process. There was the pregnancy itself, then childbirth, then a recovery and training program that saw her return to the ice four weeks after Rory was born. “But I just kept pushing and luckily it was enough.”
The coaching staff evidently didn’t want her on the team for ceremonial reasons, either. Spooner played on a line with Sarah Nurse and Sarah Fillier, two of Canada’s star forwards. (Admittedly, the team has a lot of those.)
“Just to get back out there even with my teammates, I was having a blast and, obviously, playing with Filly and Nurse is so much fun,” Spooner said.
After the shaky start, Canada cranked things up to a level familiar to a team that has won its last three major tournaments. Switzerland outshot them 9-8 in the first period, thanks in large part to three straight Canadian penalties in the opening 10 minutes, but the home side had a 41-3 advantage in shots over the final two frames. As has been the case recently when Canada plays any team that is not the United States, the speed and aggression from every skater can be smothering. It led to a win that could have been more lopsided, and a good start to the team’s title defence, which continues against Czechia on Friday night at the CAA Centre.
And for Spooner, it was an ideal welcome back.
“It’s pretty amazing how supportive my teammates and Hockey Canada have been through this whole thing,” she says. Spooner isn’t the first mom on the national team, but it’s been rare. Meaghan Mikkelson, her former teammate, and former partner on Amazing Race Canada, is one of those to have done it.
“Obviously, it’s a lot to juggle,” Spooner says. “I mean he’s got so many aunties around, they hold him at meals and make sure he’s happy so I can eat, and my mom is also here helping,” she says. “I wish he could remember this more and kind of know what’s going on because I think it’s pretty special to be surrounded by so many amazing women.”
But for now, he’s doing baby stuff. Sleeping, eating, that kind of thing.
“He’s been pretty happy around the girls, which is great,” Spooner says. “He loves them.”
Postmedia News
sstinson@postmedia.com
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