TORONTO — Natalie Spooner won’t be on the ice to open her Toronto Sceptres season on Nov. 30, and if head coach Troy Ryan had to guess, he doesn’t see last season’s league MVP being healthy enough to play for her team in the month of December, either.
“Put it this way: In my planning, she’s not,” Ryan told Sportsnet on Tuesday, when PWHL training camps officially opened across all six markets.
The PWHL’s leading scorer in Year 1, Spooner injured her left knee in Game 3 of Toronto’s playoff run this past May, which saw the league’s top regular season team upset by Minnesota, the eventual Walter Cup champions. Spooner, who paced the league in Year 1 with 20 goals in 24 games, had surgery on her left ACL this off-season.
“With those types of injuries, there are just numbers that come with it to get yourself back to 100 per cent,” Ryan said. “I don’t think anybody would want to rush her before she’s ready to come back.”
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The 34-year-old Spooner circled her team’s season opener on her calendar for her hopeful return to full action, and has been working tirelessly to regain her strength and mobility.
“I mean, she’s a machine — like, the work that she’ll do off ice to get ready and on ice to get ready,” Ryan said. “You know, the circling that date on the calendar, I think any good athlete would do that. It’s just something to strive towards. It doesn’t mean it’s realistic. But we’re very optimistic in her recovery.”
Sceptres GM Gina Kingsbury says while there’s no timeline on Spooner’s return, the two-time Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion has been progressing quicker than expected. “As you can imagine, her positivity, her approach, her work ethic, all helps her heal much faster than most people, I would say,” Kingsbury said.
Spooner told Sportsnet in a recent interview that she’s trying to be patient with herself through her rehab, and she’s using lessons learned from coming back ahead of last season after giving birth to her son, Rory.
“I’m willing to push it to get back as quick as possible but I think also, I remember when I was coming back last summer and I was on the ice with [Ottawa Charge forward] Emily Clark, and obviously it’s frustrating coming back and you don’t feel like yourself, and she was like: ‘Give yourself grace,’” Spooner said.
“So I always think of that, like, give yourself some grace. In that sense, I’m like, ‘Ok I’m probably not going to feel like the best I’ve ever felt, but just keep working through it and it’ll come.’”
Spooner pointed out that returning from an ACL injury is more predictable than her return after giving birth, too.
“I think it was probably tougher coming back from pregnancy, because there’s so many unknowns and no one knows actually what’s going on with your body, and every pregnancy is different. Yeah, I could call up my teammate who also gave birth but what I was going through was so different than what she had gone through,” Spooner said. “Whereas there’s so many people that have had torn ACLs and ACL surgery, so in that sense, there’s just way more research on this, there’s way more people to talk to and to know how it’s supposed to feel, and that it’s okay to feel that way.”
Spooner describes being “heartbroken” having to watch her team play in the post-season, not being able to play herself. Now she’ll do the same to open Season 2.
The Sceptres take the ice for the first time on Thursday to open the on-ice part of training camp, and they’ll play in the PWHL’s first game of the season, hosting Boston at their new home, the Coca-Cola Coliseum, at 2 p.m. ET on Nov. 30.
Toronto added scoring power up front this off-season that should help the team offensively while their top scorer is out, like Daryl Watts, Emma Woods, Julia Gosling and Izzy Daniel.
“If you look at the people we picked up, I think we’re going to be a very good team, so it’s really exciting,” Spooner said. “And going into this year, to bring back that Walter Cup, I think there’s a lot we can take away from last year to this year to get the job done.”
It’s a job the Sceptres will start later this month, and for the time being, without Spooner in the lineup.
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