Worlds weary Toronto Sceptres already locking in for PWHL finish

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Right back to the grind.

An elongated break for the world championships has come and gone and whether you were members of the gold medal-winning Americans, the silver-medal-winning Canadian side or even the non-medallists like Sweden, Germany, or Czechia, it was back to work for the bulk of the Toronto Sceptres as they attempt to salt away a playoff position in the three regular-season games that remain.

Sceptres’ head coach Troy Ryan, who wore that same hat with Team Canada, offered an extra day to recuperate from the worlds to any of the 12 players on his PWHL club that made the trek over to Czechia to as representatives on five separate national team squads.

Some took him up on his offer while others didn’t, but suffice to say, all are working at putting behind them a rather emotional and draining few weeks at the worlds.

Canada’s squad, which fell in overtime in the gold-medal game to the U.S., departed Czechia on Monday morning and were back in Toronto following a stopover in Frankfurt by late afternoon Monday having lost six hours on the flight home.

Renata Fast, the anchor of Canada’s defence and obviously a key member of Ryan’s Sceptres as well, opted to pass on the offered extra day’s rest.

“I woke up feeling pretty good, but I’m starting to hit a bit of a wall now,” Fast said following the Sceptres practice Wednesday at the Ford Performance Centre. “But I was up already and at it, so I just figured might as well come to the rink and get right back at it. The girls (that didn’t go to the worlds) have been working for the past three weeks in just their small group and you want to get back with the crew.”

While there were explicit directions from Team Canada staff on how to adjust to the time change going over, this is really the first time the women were coming back to a league that was still on-going, so it fell to the individuals to ensure that side of things was taken care of.

Ryan has little concern about his group being able to do that.

“I have a lot of confidence in our group because you just have a group of pros who know how to take care of themselves,” he said. “You can be perfect and it’s (still) not going to mean it won’t be hard and difficult, but I trust our group.”

As for the group that didn’t go over, they remained in Toronto and conducted their daily practices. Ryan was in touch with a number of those players who remained behind while in Czechia, so he knew they were working, but even he was a little surprised and appreciative over the progress made that he saw in them when he showed up for their practice on Tuesday.

“This year we are so much in a better place than we were last year after the break and I think that’s in part because some of the players who stayed here recognized that last year wasn’t up to the standards that we want to have and I think they took some accountability that they wanted to make sure even before we left to have some sit down chats on what it needs to look like,” Ryan said. “So, I think they took it into their hands a little bit and then I think our staff that is here this year also recognized last year wasn’t where it needed to be and then they made sure it was at least closer to where we need to be.”

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Fast, who didn’t hide her disappointment at failing to bring home gold, believes the opportunity to win a championship with the Sceptres will be motivation enough to put that gold-medal loss behind her.

“Obviously it stings (not having won gold) but there’s definitely some motivation there and we have to flip the switch a little and get back into this mode with the Sceptres,” Fast said.

Of course there are three members of the winning U.S. team on the Sceptres roster as well and so not everyone is going to want to rush to forget what went on in Czehcia.

Ryan joked there was a little good-natured chirping going on between the returning Americans and their Canadian counterparts.

“It’s tough,” Ryan said. “No one knows quite how to act, I think.”

The upcoming schedule should take care of that beginning Saturday in Boston when the Sceptres take on the Fleet.

The team basically needs one more point to clinch a playoff spot, although there are a number of ways in which that can happen. But Fast says the Sceptres will be looking for more than the bare minimum heading into playoffs.

“Yeah, the mentality is to go win these three games no matter what and put ourselves in the best position and on a good streak heading into the playoffs,” she said.