Twelve of Canada's gold medallists from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing will help present the best in women's hockey on Feb. 1 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
Marie-Philip Poulin highlights a standout group that will take the ice in the PWHL 3-on-3 Showcase, part of the NHL All-Star Thursday festivities. The leagues announced a full list of 24 players on Monday, half of them Canadian.
Poulin's Montreal teammates Laura Stacey, Ann-Renée Desbiens and Erin Ambrose also made the cut for the 20-minute game.
So did Sarah Nurse, Blayre Turnbull, Jocelyne Larocque and Renata Fast, who play for Toronto, Emerance Maschmeyer, Brianne Jenner and Emily Clark, of Ottawa.
New York's Ella Shelton rounds out a large group of former Olympians that could have been larger if her teammate and captain Micah Zandee-Hart, also part of Canada's gold medal campaign in Beijing, wasn't injured.
Meanwhile, with a whopping cumulative 146 Olympic and 46 world championship medals among its list of chosen players, it's no wonder the United States will also be well represented.
Pyeongchang 2018 gold medallists Hilary Knight, Kelly Pannek, Megan Keller, Lee Stecklein, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Nicole Hensley are part of the 11-member American roster.
Swiss forward Alina Müller will represent the Boston franchise as the only European on the list.
Former tennis players and sports equality icons Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss will lend their names to the 3-on-3 sides. They both serve as PWHL advisory board members.
PWHL special adviser Cassie Campbell-Pascall will serve as Team King's head coach, with Meghan Duggan handling bench duties for Team Kloss.
Three of the four officials are also from Canada.
Referee Elizabeth Mantha of Longueuil, Que., linespersons Kirsten Welsh of Blackstock, Ont., and Alexandra Clarke of Weyburn, Sask., will be joined by American referee Samantha Hiller.
Other than the PWHL, they all work in the American Hockey League.
Tickets for the event are available on Ticketmaster.
WATCH l PWHL players envious of Poulin's skills:
Team King:
Team Kloss:
WATCH l CBC Sports asks PWHL players which opponent they would like to avoid:
