'So many emotions': Emily Clark on being a pro hockey player in Ottawa

As the newly created Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) ramps up to its inaugural season, team cities are starting to meet some of the players.

The as yet unnamed Ottawa team will feature at least three members of the 2022 gold medal-winning Canadian Olympic team: forwards Emily Clark and Brianne Jenner and goalie Emerance Maschmeyer. Free agency ends Sunday and the 2023 PWHL draft takes place Sept. 18.

Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA's "CFRA Live with Andrew Pinsent" on Sunday, Clark said she's very excited to start playing professionally in Ottawa.

"To now really have that legitimacy, being able to say it, it feels really good," she said, of being a professional hockey player.

Clark, 27, has won two Olympic medals with team Canada, one gold and one silver, as well as seven IIHF Women's World Championship medals, two 4 Nations Cup medals, and two u18 gold medals. From 2014 to 2019—with a break for the Winter Games in 2018—she played for the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

Clark says the creation of the Professional Women's Hockey League, with teams in both Canada and the U.S., has been a long time coming.

"So many emotions. Obviously, this is something that not only the players and the players' association have been working on for so long, but pioneers of the sport and women's hockey players for many years," she said. 

U.S. businessman Mark Walter and his wife Kimbra are backing the league financially. Walter is part owner of the L.A. Dodgers and co-owner of Chelsea FC. Women's tennis icon Billie Jean King is on the board of directors.

"It's just pretty cool to have someone with so much historic, ground-breaking power to back us," Clark said.

Clark has spent some time in Ottawa. She says she lived in Montreal for two years after graduating from the University of Wisconsin and visited regularly. She also played in the capital in the lead-up to the 2022 Olympics.

"We actually spent about two weeks in Ottawa. We played the U.S. at the Ottawa 67's arena and we also played in the U18 Challenge Cup, so in terms of pit stops that we've made for that season, we were actually there for quite awhile, so I got a good feel for the city," she said.

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She says there is a secret to her success.

"I think the biggest thing for me is always having fun with it," she said. "Never treating it like a job, even though I'm very excited and happy that it is my job, especially now, but just having fun with it is the biggest thing you preach to young kids and I continue to preach. I think it's a big reason for my success. I look forward to going to the rink every day."

Clark says she hopes the league will inspire a new generation of hockey fans and players.

"It's extremely important. The saying is, 'if you can see it, you can be it,' and it's so true," she said. "I got to watch the Olympics every four years and that was enough to spark my dream of wanting to be an Olympian and play on the national team but even those women weren't as visible as they should have, even been back then.

"Growing up, I wanted to be the first girl to play in the NHL and I'm so pumped now that girls have their own professional hockey league to aspire to be in."

And it's not just players who are important, she added.

"There are women and girls out there that want to be in league positions and maybe they don't make it as a player, but there are these roles that they can do and be amazing at and excel at, so I think that the visibility on the business side is equally as important as the player side," she said.

Ottawa's PWHL team will play at TD Place. Ottawa joins Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, and Minneapolis-St. Paul as the original six teams in the PWHL.

The first season is expected to get underway in January.