How NHL legends Keith Tkachuk, Al MacInnis put an Ottawa Charge defender on path to pros
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Growing up just outside of St. Louis in O’Fallon, Mo., means Jincy Roese will be going home when the Ottawa Charge face the Boston Fleet in Saturday afternoon’s “Takeover Tour” PWHL game at the 18,096-seat Enterprise Center.
It also means the 27-year-old Charge defender was expecting the questions about her upbringing and her connection with former NHL great Keith Tkachuk, his two elite hockey-playing sons, and — maybe most importantly — Hall of Fame blue liner Al MacInnis.
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How NHL legends Keith Tkachuk, Al MacInnis put an Ottawa Charge defender on path to pros Back to video
Roese, who played hockey with both Brady Tkachuk and Matthew Tkachuk, met the brothers when Keith was a coach with her minor league “boys” team.
And that came about through MacInnis, who Roese credits with putting her on the path to become a professional hockey player.
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“If it weren’t for him …” Roese began when speaking with reporters on a Zoom call. “I was playing with his daughter, Lauren, and he actually reached out to the men’s coach for me and said, like, ‘Hey, I think you should give this girl a shot.’
“I think without them, my career would have been on a totally different trajectory because those years were so pivotal for my development. So (MacInnis) actually got me kind of a foot in the door playing on the boys team and I joined the boys team. And, sure enough, Keith Tkachuk was one of our assistant coaches. So getting to learn under him was huge.”
Charge goalie Gwyneth Philips, who grew up in Athens, Ohio, also was friends with Lauren MacInnis as teammates at Northeastern University.
Because she says she doesn’t “watch hockey,” Gwyneth didn’t realize that Lauren MacInnis’ father became one of the NHL all-time greats over 13 seasons with the Calgary Flames and 10 with the St. Louis Blues.
“I just knew her dad was a hockey player and was good,” Philips said. “One day I texted my brother and I was like, ‘Do you know this guy?’ And my brother was like, ‘yes, Gwyn, you should too!’
“Then I remember we were watching the (all-star game) skills competition one day and we were on the phone with him, just rehashing one of our own games. And he was talking to his daughter, and said, ‘OK, I’ll be right back, I gotta go.’ And not even two seconds later, he’s jumping out onto the ice for the skills NHL all-star game to do an honourary hardest shot. And I was like: ‘That’s so cool!’ Yeah, he was a good guy.”
Playing on the boys’ team, Roese says she got “rocked at certain times,” but it taught her to play in a physical game and forced her to make quick decisions.
Of her time as a kid with siblings who would go on to captain the Ottawa Senators (Brady) and win a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers (Matthew), Roese has told reporters: “We were weird adolescent teenagers at the time. So, I tried to respect the guys’ space, but it was good.”
Roese mentioned two Ottawa natives and former NHLers who helped her become a pro: Defenceman Jamie Rivers and Jeff Brown.
“A lot of guys really poured in to the development teams (in St. Louis),” she said on the Zoom call. “Jamie Rivers was another guy I spent a lot of time with on the ice, he does a lot of media for the Blues these days and, oh my gosh, there are so many. I’m probably not gonna be able to name them all.
“But yeah, Jeff Brown, I did some skates with him because he was coaching the ’98 group. So when I was out there to practice with them, I got to learn from him as well.”
Roese said she has reserved about 30 tickets for Saturday’s game, while Philips joked that she’s “not as popular as Jincy.”
The Charge, which is two points back of the Minnesota Frost for the final playoff spot with one game in hand, will be trying to bounce back from its devastating loss to the last-place New York Sirens on Tuesday in which they blew a three-goal third-period lead while being outscored 6-0 and outshot 18-0 in the third period.
The Fleet is lodged in third place, five ahead of Minnesota and five behind the Toronto Sceptres.
Boston has won all four meetings with Ottawa this season, with two coming in overtime, while Ottawa is still looking for its first neutral-site victory in its fifth try since the PWHL’s inception.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to win games, we’re here to make playoffs,” Roese said. “The Takeover Tour is fun and it helps you keep everything in perspective, but the reality is we’re getting paid to play hockey, we have a job to do, and I think we take that very seriously.
“From an Ottawa standpoint, we haven’t deviated from anything. We’re kind of just hammering home the things that we’re good at, our strengths, and how can we make our weaknesses less of a weakness. And so I think we recognize the importance of all the games, we know what it’s like to have your destiny in your hands and lose that towards the end. We did that last year, but we’re not making that same mistake again.
“I think our mindset is right, our work ethic is there, and I like where our team is.”
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