Canada's Chloe Primerano poised for women's world hockey championship debut

Chloe Primerano continues to be ahead of her time.

She's answered the bell at higher levels of hockey in recent months and has the chance to do it again.

At 18 years three months, Primerano will be the youngest defender to play for Canada at a women's world championship since Cheryl Pounder in 1994.

The 10-country tournament opens Wednesday in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, but Canada doesn't start defence of its gold medal until Thursday against Finland at 1 p.m. ET.

Hayley Wickenheiser at 15 years four months in 1994 was the youngest player ever for Canada in a world championship.

Primerano's standout tournaments in back-to-back world under-18 championships sandwiched a memorable three-game stint with the national team last fall in the Rivalry Series against the United States.

So, competing with the likes of Marie-Philip Poulin and against Hilary Knight in the Czech Republic won't feel foreign for the teenager from North Vancouver, B.C.

"I feel like I'm ready," Primerano said. "I'm surrounded by pretty amazing players and a great team, so I know they're going to set me up pretty well, and it's going to be awesome.

"It's pretty special, just being able to play on this team with my idols. I'm really excited, and I can't wait to play with everyone again."

She captained Canada to a gold medal in January's under-18 championship and was named the tournament's top defender by the IIHF directorate. Her 16 points in eight games as an underage player in 2024 was an under-18 tournament record.

Experience representing country

Primerano played the first three games of the national team's Rivalry Series against the U.S. in November. At 17, she was the only Canadian to score in the shootout of a 5-4 win in West Valley City, Utah, that evened the series 1-1.

In the Czech Republic, she dons the Maple Leaf a fourth time in less than a year and a half, and in a field that includes almost 60 battle-hardened pros from the Professional Women's Hockey League.

"We've always been a little bit on the conservative side of bringing someone as young as Chloe is to the senior level," Canada's general manager Gina Kingsbury said.

"For Chloe, we brought her to the Rivalry Series, we've had her in our environment and she's a pretty exceptional athlete that's ready for that jump.

"She's a great skater, she sees the game extremely well, she brings all the attributes that are valuable at that level already. She makes us better. It's not a matter of developing or looking at the future. We think she can come in and impact our success and impact our team."

Said head coach Troy Ryan: "There's a high level of skill there. There's a confidence greater than her years."

In addition to her exploits for Canada, Primerano hit the ground running in her University of Minnesota freshman year.

She scored in her debut against the University of Connecticut and assisted on an OT winner the next day against the Huskies.

After five goals, 26 assists and a Frozen Four appearance with the Golden Gophers, Primerano was named to the NCAA's all-rookie team.

"She chose to come to college a year early," Minnesota head coach Brad Frost said.

'Incredible passion for the game'

"Playing against players who are five, six years older than her at times, really from Day 1 we knew that Chloe was going to be more than OK. Even though she was younger, she's got an incredible passion for the game, very smart hockey player, and somebody that was ready for the bigger moments and ready for the higher pace of play."

Former Canadian team forward Vicky Sunohara, who coached Primerano at both under 18-championships, said Primerano took a lot on her own shoulders the first year and then blossomed into a leader of women in the second.

"This year, she probably had the same pressure and the pressure of being captain, but she was able to handle that better, really help her teammates, whether it was communication on the ice or off the ice, speaking up in meetings and having a calming voice," Sunohara said.

"She sounds shy, but she's never afraid to put up her hand or to share her opinion and be vulnerable in front of a group. Her vulnerability was really noticed and really appreciated among her peers and the players."

Primerano followed her brother Luca into hockey at the North Shore Winter Club.

She played two seasons on the Burnaby Winter Club's under-15 boys' team before joining the Rink Hockey Academy's women's under-18 program in Kelowna, B.C.

"Her vision and her agility, her lateral movement, that puck stays on her stick," Sunohara said. "That probably comes from playing a lot of guys' hockey with hitting. She goes at top speed with her head up.

Lone female taken in CHL draft

"That's important now as she's playing against bigger, stronger, faster players."

Hockey culture constantly heralds "the next one." Primerano had that spotlight in the women's game swung on her when she was only female skater to be chosen in a Canadian Hockey League draft by the Vancouver Giants (268th) in 2022.

Ryan winces a bit when he hears Primerano called the next Poulin because he feels that's overbearing for a player still in the early bud of her career.

"It's the best and the worst thing," Ryan said. "It's so much to put on a player at that age. It's a great compliment. Hopefully she can manage it, but it's also not fair in a way. Let's talk in 20 years' time."

Primerano has a head start on making those years count.

"I feel like going to this world championship, I'm going to be a sponge and soak it all up," she said.

Canada's MacLeod part of Czech hockey history

The first women's world hockey championship in the Czech Republic has Canada's Carla MacLeod behind the bench of the host country.

It's another in a series of coaching firsts for the Calgarian in her fourth season as head coach of the Czech women.

MacLeod was the first female coach hired by Czech Hockey in 2022. She navigated the women to their first world championship medal that year in Herning, Denmark, and backed that up with another bronze in 2023 in Brampton, Ont.

The Czechs lost the bronze-medal game to Finland last year in Utica, N.Y., where MacLeod was the only female head coach among the 10 countries.

Her players will compete in the pinnacle of the women's international hockey season in front of home fans for the first time in their lives starting Wednesday here.

"It's a big deal," MacLeod said Monday. "It's not lost on us what this moment can do for the sport in the country."

The 42-year-old has an inkling of the emotions her players will feel Wednesday against Switzerland.

The former Canadian defender won world championship gold in Winnipeg in 2007 and Olympic gold in Vancouver in 2010.

"I can't speak to any experience from a coaching perspective and hosting an event of this magnitude, but with my playing days, I was fortunate enough to play at a couple events in Canada," MacLeod said.

"Once the puck drops, it's just getting your feet under you in those first few few moments. It's not taking away from taking it in. I remember in Vancouver, when I was stretching in warm ups on the ice, I just looked around, popped my mouth guard out and just smiled thinking 'how am I here?'

The Ottawa Charge's head coach in the Professional Women's Hockey League has three Charge players on her Czech roster, including Tereza Vanisova who ranked second in PWHL goals (15) before the international break.

The Czech Republic has 1,544 female players in a population of 10 million, compared to Canada's 108,000 in 40 million.

The Czech women climbed the ladder over the last decade out of the Division 1 world championship. They avoided relegation in 2017 and qualified for their first Olympic Games in 2022 before breaking into the world's top five countries.