Burlington's Renata Fast among elite players set for PWHL launch

It will be a dream come true for just about anyone involved in women’s hockey.

Six teams representing the best of what the sport has to offer will begin the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League in less than
than five months — January, 2024. The formation of the new league was announced Aug. 29.

Burlington will be represented by a number of players, including Canadian Olympic defender Renata Fast. She and other elite players are being recruited in a 10-day free agency period that started Sept. 1  that will allow the six teams in the PWHL to each sign three players to the roster. Fast, Sarah Nurse and Blayre Turnbull were named to the Toronto roster on Tuesday (Sept. 5).

A draft to stock the remaining spots on the teams will be held Sept. 18.

When the initial puck is dropped, it will mark the first time that all of the best talent in the sport will compete in the same league. There are three Canadian teams — Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa — with three more from the United States — Boston, New York and Minnesota.

Familiar names such as longtime NHL executive Brian Burke (executive director of the PWHL Players Association) and tennis PWHLPA executive
member Billie Jean King, the iconic tennis Hall-of-Famer) are supporting the league. While not affiliated with the PWHL, the National Hockey League
will also lend its support.

Fast can’t wait to take part in a venture she couldn’t have dreamed of when she was a child watching the early clashes of Canada and the United
States in women’s Olympic and world championship hockey.

She’s won Olympic gold (2022) and world gold (2021 and 2022) and at age 19 was an integral part of Clarkson University’s national women’s university
Division 1 hockey title in 2014.

Now the M.M. Robinson High School grad will get the chance to battle for a professional hockey championship featuring the world’s best players.
And, with her 29th birthday coming next month, she still has plenty of time to compete at the professional level.

“This opportunity … where young girls can also watch girls play at the professional level opens up a whole new wave of opportunities,” Fast said
in a recent CHCH-TV interview. “There have been professional leagues before, but they truly weren’t professional. The best talent in the world
wasn’t being played in one single entity. And now we have that.”

Burke, at the news conference announcing the new league, reassured female players around the world that talent will be the deciding factor in
who plays.

“Don’t worry where you played before,” he said. “We’ve got a spot for you if it makes us better.”

Another Canadian Olympic team member from Burlington, Nelson High School graduate Emma Maltais, 23, will almost certainly be part of the
PWHL in January. She finished her college career at Ohio State last spring.

Current and graduating NCAA athletes can't sign with the PWHL during the free agency window, but can declare for the 15-round draft in September.