PWHL Vancouver GM Gardner Morey excited to build expansion team's inaugural roster

The Canadian Press

· Posted: May 30, 2025 7:33 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

Cara Gardner Morey knows her beingness is astir to get precise busy.

As the archetypal wide manager of Vancouver's caller Professional Women's Hockey League team, her docket for the upcoming weeks rapidly filled arsenic the league announced plans for its 2 enlargement teams to physique retired their rosters.

On Tuesday, an exclusive signing model volition open. Then there's the enlargement draft, followed by a league-wide introduction draught astatine the extremity of June.

Gardner Morey isn't daunted — she's excited.

"It's specified a chill opportunity," she said Friday. "And I'm benignant of chomping astatine the spot for June 4 erstwhile I tin commencement making these calls and benignant of talking to the players we're funny successful bringing to our franchise."

Building a nonrecreational women's hockey squad is thing Gardner Morey dreamt astir erstwhile she was a player, archetypal astatine Brown University, past successful the National Women's Hockey League wherever she played with Jayna Hefford, present the PWHL's enforcement vice president of hockey operations.

"We were conscionable excited to beryllium portion of thing wherever we didn't person to wage for hockey," Gardner Morey said. "And we've watched it implicit the years, and we've watched benignant of nonrecreational hockey for women travel and spell and waiver.

"Then erstwhile this league started, conscionable the mode that it was structured, the concern model, the enactment successful place, you could spot precise rapidly that this was going to beryllium a success. And I knew it was thing I truly wanted to beryllium a portion of. I conscionable consciousness truthful grateful that I tin assistance beryllium a portion of this growth. It's awesome."

More than 200 radical applied to beryllium the caller wide manager successful Vancouver, Hefford said. Another 200 vied for the aforesaid occupation successful Seattle, location of the league's different enlargement franchise.

WATCH | How the PWHL's enlargement draught volition work:

Proven herself

Gardner Morey was picked due to the fact that she's proven herself during the 14 years she spent with Princeton's women's hockey team, Hefford added.

During her 8 years arsenic caput coach, Princeton won an Ivy League championship, qualified for 2 NCAA quarterfinals and acceptable a single-season grounds for wins (26).

She's besides worked arsenic an adjunct manager for the Canadian women's U-18 squad successful 2016-17, and for Canada during the Rivalry bid against the United States successful February 2019.

"She has built a programme (at Princeton) that has competed astatine the highest level, proven herself to beryllium a large recruiter successful presumption of immoderate of the players she was capable to bring into that programme and the occurrence they've had some determination and coming retired of that program," Hefford said. "And Cara conscionable comes with specified a passionateness and an vigor for the crippled and the sport."

While astatine Princeton, Gardner Morey coached some existent Minnesota Frost defender Claire Thompson, a finalist for this year's PWHL's apical defender award, and New York Sirens guardant Sarah Fillier, who's up for the apical guardant and rookie of the twelvemonth awards.

The determination to determination from down the seat to a beforehand bureau was spurred by the 46-year-old Gardner Morey's passionateness for enactment and the feeling that the determination made consciousness arsenic the adjacent measurement successful her career.

"I did person to deliberation astir it, due to the fact that I'm leaving the coaching realm," she said. "But connected immoderate level, I deliberation it's going to beryllium bully to beryllium capable to ticker the games from up apical and not needfully consciousness the accent of it connected the seat successful the moment. So it's thing I'm truly looking guardant to."

Now tasked with gathering a squad from scratch, Gardner Morey is moving to find players and unit who'll acceptable her imaginativeness for a speedy, skilled, carnal squad that has an amazing, competitory culture.

There are ample candidates for the coaching staff, she said, and her caput agelong agone turned to plotting the cleanable roster.

"That's what's breathtaking astir this position, right? Building your ain squad and this phantasy that you could astir take anybody you want, which we cognize that's not rather the mode it goes," Gardner Morey said.

"But I started reasoning astir it arsenic soon arsenic I started exploring this presumption and was watching each the games. You're conscionable watching like, `Ooh, who would beryllium large successful this spot?' And gathering rosters and gathering puzzle pieces and creating the civilization is thing I'm really, truly excited about."