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As one of the original building blocks of Toronto’s PWHL entry, Renata Fast has a vested interest in the success of the first truly professional women’s hockey league.
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To suggest this Burlington, Ont., native likes the direction the franchise is headed would be a huge understatement.
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Fast, along with Sarah Nurse and Blayre Turnbull, were Toronto’s three foundational signings in advance of the PWHL draft.
Together, they are the core of the Toronto club that will play out of Mattamy Athletic Centre. The team will begin play on Jan. 1 in a 12:30 puck drop at Mattamy.
As it stands now,the roster includes 15 signed players with nine forwards, four defence and two goalies.
There are another 14 unsigned players taking part in training camp being conducted at the Ford Performance Centre under the watchful eyes of head coach Troy Ryan and his staff and GM Gina Kingsbury.
Fast says the priority from Day 1 has been team chemistry. Kingsbury said the commitment to building a team that could work together actually started with roster selections in the foundational signings followed by the draft and the free-agent invitations to camp.
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Fast is thrilled with how seamless that build has been.
“Honestly, it’s been really easy because everyone has been so eager to get going and to be in this professional environment,” she said. “Every day everyone is coming to the rink excited to be around one another and excited to grow. I feel like it’s been really easy even with players I didn’t know and it’s been fun to watch what makes them successful and it’s going to help build all of us.”
Not that Fast would ever be uncomfortable on any team given her standing in the game as one of the world’s premiere defenders, but her comfort level took a big jump on draft night when Toronto took her national team defence partner Jocelyne Larocque with its first pick, second overall.
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“I might have put some things in Gina’s ear,” Fast laughed when the selection was brought up. “But I think Gina was already on that same page. It was just incredible. I mean, we work so well together.
“I know for me, Jos is someone that everyone wants on their team,” Fast said. “The person and the leader she is, the energy she brings every day — I know for me when I was young and coming into the national team program, she was a huge mentor to me and the reason why I got comfortable in the program. So now, to have that bond with her and be consistent ‘D’ partners with her — we just work really well together. We’re kind of like-minded in a lot of ways. It’s fun.”
But Larocque is far from the only familiar face Fast sees when she looks around the locker room these days.
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There are plenty of national team standouts from Nurse and Turnbull to Natalie Spooner and Emma Maltais, not to mention some U.S. national team members like Kali Flanagan and Jesse Compher.
Fast is thoroughly enjoying both new and old friends. Any semblance of rivalry from all those Team Canada/U.S. battles is long gone.
“It’s really cool actually,” Fast said. “You begin to appreciate parts of players’ games that you have played against for years but you have never really, like, understood some areas they are so successful at. You can learn a lot from other players so that has been really fun.”
But more than anything, the feeling of knowing her life-long passion and the game she loves is finally getting the chance to operate at a professional level has Fast beaming.
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There have been other professional women’s leagues in North America, but none that rival the PWHL, which was a full four years in the making.
“I know people say it was professional before,” Fast said, referring to leagues such as the NWHL and the CWHL. “It’s just a new level of professionalism I would say. It’s a whole new level.”
The difference for Fast is the backing this league has. All six of the PWHL’s teams are owned by the Mark Walter Group. Walter just happens to be a part-owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the co-owner of Premier League club Chelsea F.C.
“When the CWHL folded and we took those years for what are the next steps going to be, I feel it was challenging at times,” Fast said. “I was always optimistic that we would get to a point where we had this true league. But there were definitely doubts along the way. It took way too long from 2019 until 2023 and there were a lot of moments where you were left in the dark. ‘Am I ever going to see this out as a player or will it be past my playing days that this league will actually come to fruition?’
“I always was optimistic, but the moment it really became real was when Stan (Kasten) and the Mark Walter group came on and then it was like, ‘OK, the backing of this league is now legit,’ ” Fast said. “This is solid. We have such a good foundation. That is the moment where I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be real. This is actually what we were envisioning.’ ”
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