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<\/p>\n\u201cBut just knowing that I would get to at least come back here to potentially play games or just be in the area, it was exciting. And I have a lot of pride for the city and hockey in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
The veteran forward went on to sign a three-year deal with the Goldeneyes and become a core piece of the franchise\u2019s first-ever roster.<\/p>\n
The way Vancouver has embraced the team has been extraordinary, Miller said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still kind of have to pinch myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m shocked when I\u2019m kind of out on an off day at a coffee shop and you see a jersey, or someone comes up to you. That\u2019s what we worked really hard for. And it\u2019s surreal, it\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prospect of being part of growing women\u2019s hockey in Vancouver was an exciting one for Sarah Nurse. <\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that after expansion was announced last year and I was left unprotected, I knew that Vancouver was definitely a destination that I wanted to explore,\u201d said the star forward, who scored the club\u2019s first ever goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I\u2019m very grateful for the opportunity to have done that. And I\u2019ll never forget that first goal. I\u2019ve never felt like energy like that in a building before. And since then, the energy has been absolutely incredible, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Goldeneyes regularly draw more than 10,000 fans to games at Vancouver\u2019s historic Pacific Coliseum, above the average of 9,229 fans at games across the league this season.<\/p>\n
A battle with the league-leading Montreal Victoire on Tuesday night saw a crowd of 10,946. Though the home side was eliminated from playoff contention days before the puck dropped, fans \u2014 the vast majority clad in Goldeneyes gear \u2014 remained boisterous, cheering and singing until the final whistle on Vancouver\u2019s 4-3 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Vancouver truly has the best fans,\u201d said captain Ashton Bell. \u201cI knew the support was going to be incredible right off the bat, from being here this summer and just hearing all the talk about getting a team and how excited they were.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, this season, they just showed up every single night, every single game. They brought the energy, you could feel it on the ice. No matter what the situation was, they were there supporting us, and we definitely build off it and feed off their energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2025-26 season hasn\u2019t always been easy for the Goldeneyes.<\/p>\n
Injuries to key players, including Nurse, hurt the team\u2019s offensive output. The league took an extended break for the Olympics. Travel proved challenging for Vancouver and their fellow expansion club, the Seattle Torrent.<\/p>\n
The Goldeneyes have one game left on their schedule, a battle with two-time PWHL champions the Minnesota Frost on Saturday. Vancouver goes in with a 9-2-4-14 record, good for seventh place in the eight-team league.<\/p>\n
Building cohesion with an expansion team is tough, Nurse said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s completely different, coming into a space where there\u2019s really no structure, infrastructure, systems, anything in place, no standards,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so you kind of have to create that and cultivate that yourself, obviously, as a group, but as staff as well. And so it\u2019s been a completely unique and different experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PWHL is expected to expand again next season, though no announcements have yet been made.<\/p>\n
Adding teams in Vancouver and Seattle showed that the league knows what they\u2019re doing, Bell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust getting the representation and seeing it grow so quickly is pretty, pretty spectacular,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the support has been incredible. So I think, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re expanding two teams or four teams, but just kudos to the league for handling it so well, and managing it and putting it in markets that are going to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expansion does take a toll, though, Nurse noted.<\/p>\n
Players get uprooted. Fans are disappointed to see their favourite stars moved across the continent. The uncertainty of what next season will look like can be difficult for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a privilege to play professional hockey, and that\u2019s not something that we take lightly. We are so grateful to be able to play this sport at this level,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cBut just going into every season, coming out of every season with that uncertainty, as a player, you ultimately want to be a part of a team and be a part of a franchise and build something.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we want to help build a franchise in Vancouver. Hopefully we have a lot of the team together next year, but we\u2019ll have to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2026.<\/p>\n
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBut just knowing that I would get to at least come back here to potentially play games or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,82,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-625329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-central-vancouver-island","12":"tag-nanaimo","13":"tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","14":"tag-nanaimo-news","15":"tag-nanaimo-news-now","16":"tag-nanaimonewsnow","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-oceanside","19":"tag-parksville","20":"tag-qualicum","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-vancouver"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}