Natalie Sponer had in April 2025 in circulation in her calendar.
PWHL’s reigning MVP lost the beginning of this season when he recovered from the knee surgery out of season, the product of an injury he suffered during the defeat of the first round of Toronto Sceptres against Minnesota the last spring.
But Sponer knew that he wanted to be back all speed to help defend the title of Canada as world champions. The Canadians begin to play Thursday in the Czech Republic, with Finland first at the team’s schedule.
“I’m glad to be here,” Sponer said in an interview with CBC Sports’s Northern Hockey.
“I am very excited to be here, grateful to be here and I am only anxious to climb that ice and represent my country again. It has been very fun to return with the girls and this group. It is such an incredible group.”
He has been a whirlwind for Spooner, who not only returned to play in the opening season of PWHL approximately one year after giving birth to his son, Rory, but led the league at points and goals. She was also appointed player of the year of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Then, he resumed the game in February after recovering from LCA surgery. It did not take long to return to his usual office: planted in front of the network, which hinders the life of PWHL goalkeepers.
“We are tremendously proud of the work that has invested in reaching this point,” said the general manager of Toronto, Gina Kingsbury, when Sponer joined the alignment of the Sceptres. “This has been a long trip, and she has demonstrated throughout this process how the elite of an athlete is.”
After more than a decade on the world stage, Spooner, 34, is still excited to see the Canadian costumes, decorated to feel at home and the ice where his team will compete. This year will be his eleventh world championship, and will compete with five teammates who will have their first taste for the national senior team in Worlds.
He takes her back to the nerves and the anticipation she felt in 2011, in her first worlds in Switzerland.
A year later, he won his first world championship in Vermont. After being rejected by Americans 9-2 in the preliminary round, the spoon and Captain Hayley Wicknheiser organized a team link in flash Mob’s dance in the team’s food room.
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The 34 -year -old striker discusses the new faces in Team Canada and the favorite memories of the World Championship in his career.
When the Canadians found the Americans again in the final, the result was very different: a 5-4 extra-time championship victory, thanks to a goal by Caroline Ouellette.
Spooner also thinks of a very different competition within a Covid bubble in Calgary in 2021. After two canceled tournaments, months out of ice and a lot of time only in the hotel rooms, the Canadians became world champions for the first time in more than a decade.
VETERANO advice
Over the years, his role in the national team has evolved. He went from playing in the fourth line as a rookie with the applications Cherie Piper and Gillian, to compete with Wicknheiser and Meghan Agosta in their first Olympic Games in 2014.
In those games in Russia, Wickenheiser told Spooner not to worry about what any other person thinks and simply play their game. It is a advice that is always stuck with her, and that is what would tell her teammates that they will make their debut in the world at the end of this week.
Look | Mic’d with spoon:
Listen to the best ice moments from the Natalie Spoon’s Canadian forward while Toronto’s Sceptres defeat Montreal Victoire 4-1.
That includes Daryl Watts, 25, whom Spoon expects to have a great impact on the Canadian offensive, and Chloe Primerano, 18, a defender whose game is already mature enough to play with the best of the best.
That is something that has not changed in more than a decade: its style of play. Spooner has always been difficult to play.
“The good thing is that I can adapt wherever they see me and whatever they want to do,” he said. “I will be that player who carries records to the network, is a good front of the network, which I think is quite adaptable to any line that you put me. I can do the same job.”
Spooner and the rest of the Canada team will face Finland at 1 PM ET on Thursday, followed by Switzerland at 9 am on Friday.
Canadians will fight against the United States at 1 PM on Sunday before concluding the preliminary round against the Czech Republic on Monday at 1 pm
The gold medal game is scheduled for April 20.
Other stories to see
• Finland will face Canada without his best defender and captain. Jenni Hiirikoski was out of the list due to a disease. He played almost 32 minutes in the victory of the Bronze Medal of Finland over the Czech Republic last year.
• The Czechs will organize the tournament for the first time. The best hockey players in the world have gathered in české Budějovice, a small city near the southern border of the country with Austria. The Czech team, led by the chief coach of Ottawa Charge, Carla Macleod, will seek to capitalize a strong season for Charge Tereza Vanišová. It is tied with the American Hilary Knight per second at the PWHL goals score (15 goals), two behind Marie-Philip Poulin, leader of the League.
• Knight, the top scorer of all time in Women’s Worlds, is in the middle of a strong return season after the PWHL campaign impacted by last year injuries with the Boston fleet. She leads the PWHL at points (28) and will seek an avenge an extra time loss in last year’s world championship to Canada.
• Knight joins the American list for the MVP of the World Championship last year, Laila Edwards, 21. This time, Edwards will play as a defender, since chief coach John Wroblewski seeks to make the best use of his shot. He is just out of a national championship with the Wisconsin Badgers and is appointed finalist among the first three for the Patty Kazmaier award, which is awarded to the best player in the NCAA hockey.
