After a season-ending injury took her off the ice, Emerance Maschmeyer is back in blue
CBC
When Emerance Maschmeyer skated on to the ice inside Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum last Friday, it was a return to game action that’s been nine months and a lot of rehabilitation in the making.
Last March, the goaltender, then with the Ottawa Charge, received a standing ovation from the home crowd for becoming the first PWHL goaltender to reach 1,000 saves.
Moments later, Maschmeyer had to be helped off the ice after sustaining a lower-body injury while making a save.
That injury ended what had been a spectacular season for Maschmeyer. She didn’t know it at the time, but it would also be the last game she’d play for the Ottawa Charge.
Gwyneth Philips took over the starting job in Maschmeyer’s absence and ran with it all the way to the Walter Cup final, where she was named playoff MVP, despite the Charge’s loss to the Frost.
When the expansion draft process came around, and Ottawa could only protect three players to start, the team chose Philips over Maschmeyer.
“Gwyn was playing such great hockey,” Maschmeyer told CBC Sports. “They made a great choice by protecting her.”
One door closing led to a new opportunity: the chance to grow women’s hockey in western Canada with the Vancouver Goldeneyes. Maschmeyer wanted to stay in Canada, and the goaltender from Bruderheim, Alta. was one of Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey’s first signings.
“She’s outstanding,” Gardner Morey said about her starting goaltender. “Great leader. She’s a mother which I think brings a lot of outside perspective, which is great for our younger players, too. But she is unbelievably athletic in the net. Extremely detailed. Her work ethic is off the charts.”
Last season, it took Maschmeyer a while to come to grips with the reality that her injury would keep her out for the rest of the season. That included world championship with Team Canada, where Maschmeyer has been a regular in net behind Ann-Renée Desbiens.
While she wasn’t able to play, Maschmeyer focused on what she could control. That was the work she needed to do to get healthy again and her leadership behind the scenes.
“I can’t necessarily lead on the ice, but I can lead by how I’m managing this injury, lead by my mindset, lead by just being a support for the girls and a cheerleader because at that point, that’s all I really had was my voice and my work ethic,” Maschmeyer said. “I had to shift my mindset and my leadership at that time.”
One thing that helped? Maschmeyer’s son, Beckham, who was seven months old when she got hurt.
Becoming a mother has changed the way Maschmeyer approaches hockey, after years of not being able to turn off her hockey brain when she got home. One silver lining to her injury was more time to watch Beckham grow.
