Power Player

Straight-shooting Hayley Wickenheiser-four-time Olympic gold medal winner, assistant GM of the Leafs and a medical doctor has a few things to say about working under pressure

- Stéphanie Verge

Hayley Wickenheiser has been skating for almost as long as she's been walking. She honed her skills on a backyard rink flooded by her H dad in the tiny hockey-obsessed town of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan. Latenight games of shinny at home led to lacing up with the boys (and changing separately, in the boiler room) and then to joining the women's national team in 1994, where, at 15, she was a good decade younger than most of her teammates. Despite the sacrifices hockey required, Wickenheiser knew it was for her-a certainty on clear display in her 2021 memoir, Over the Boards, and in a new documentary called Wick.

Wickenheiser's 23 years as a pro are unparalleled in hockey: She is the first woman to score a goal in a men's professional league (in Finland) and she has taken part in six Olympics (five for hockey, one for softball), winning four gold medals (twice as MVP).

After such a storied career, the speaking circuit and coaching are the usual go-tos for a sports star. But not for Wickenheiser. Since hanging up her skates in 2017, she has graduated from medical school. She'd always wanted to be a doctor, ever since a delivery van hit her neighbour when she was a little girl. Wickenheiser visited her friend in the hospital and was inspired by the medical team that saved her.

These days, the 45-year-old is pulling double duty as a resident in family medicine at a Toronto hospital and an assistant general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs (the fourth woman in NHL history to hold that title). Throughout it all, she advocates passionately for girls' and women's hockey with WickFest, a festival that hosts 7,000 players each year.

In 2020, when the lockdown hit, instead of making bread you wrote a memoir, Over the Boards.

I had already committed to the book, and then I suddenly had more time on my hands. I started working on it verbally-I would talk into my phone as I drove to and from rinks and hospitals.