PWHL’s debut season among the many hockey storylines to observe in 2024

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The debut of a united North American girls’s league, Connor McDavid’s quest for staff success, the end result of Connor Bedard’s first season, a return to best-on-best within the males’s worldwide recreation, and a scandal that continues to overshadow the game.

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The Canadian Press takes a take a look at a few of the hockey storylines to observe for in 2024.

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PWHL HITS THE ICE

The Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League will drop the puck on its inaugural 72-game season on New 12 months’s Day with an Authentic Six that features groups in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The PWHL, which was born in July and had a brief runway to rise up and operating, marks the primary time North America will see one of the best gamers within the girls’s recreation all on one circuit.

The brand new league introduced a landmark nationwide broadcast deal this week with CBC/Radio-Canada, TSN/RDS and Sportsnet, together with a regional settlement south of the border with MSG Networks and NESN.

The PWHL curtain raises Monday when Toronto hosts New York.

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MCDAVID’S QUEST FOR TEAM SUCCESS

The Edmonton Oilers captain has loved unimaginable private success within the NHL, however that hasn’t translated to his staff.

Edmonton made the Western Convention closing in 2022 earlier than getting eradicated within the first spherical final spring. The Oilers fired head coach Jay Woodcroft in November following a disastrous begin to the season and changed him with McDavid’s previous junior coach, Kris Knoblauch.

The Oilers have rebounded, however stay out of the playoff image.

McDavid’s contract with the Oilers runs by way of 2025-26, whereas fellow star ahead Leon Draisaitl, who can signal an extension July 1, has a deal that expires after subsequent season.

BEDARD’S BURST

The highest decide on the 2023 NHL draft has come as marketed with the Chicago Blackhawks in his rookie marketing campaign.

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The 18-year-old from North Vancouver, B.C., brings followers out of their seats with breathtaking rushes and outrageous solo efforts _ already fulfilling sky-high expectations as the game’s subsequent large identify.

INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY

Males’s hockey hasn’t had a best-on-best match because the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The NHL skipped the 2018 Video games in Pyeongchang, South Korea and backed out of the Beijing Video games in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The gamers are determined to go — McDavid referred to as a bunch that features himself, Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews a “misplaced era” of the worldwide recreation again in September — and the NHL has repeatedly stated it plans to be in Italy for the 2026 Olympics.

However nothing has been set in stone with the Worldwide Ice Hockey Federation. The NHL, in the meantime, is trying to host a scaled down worldwide occasion of its personal in 2025 earlier than getting the World Cup again up and operating a number of years down the street.

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HOCKEY CANADA INVESTIGATION

The scandal that rocked the game on this nation continues to hold over the sport with out decision. Information broke in Might 2022 the group quietly settled a lawsuit after a lady claimed she was sexually assaulted by eight gamers, together with members of Canada’s world junior staff, following a 2018 gala in London, Ont.

Not one of the allegations have been confirmed in courtroom.

Authorities and company cash shortly evaporated, and a string of ugly headlines continued all through that spring, summer season and fall.

Hockey Canada has began to scrub up its home with new management, however till there’s a conclusion from competing investigations, it’s tough for the sport to maneuver ahead.

“Could be nice to have closure,” Hockey Canada board chair Jonathan Goldbloom stated earlier this month. “It could be to our benefit to have this finalized, however we’ve to undergo due course of.”

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CANADA’S CUP CHANCES

The Montreal Canadiens stay the final Canadian staff to hoist the Stanley Cup — all the way in which again in 1993.

The Vancouver Canucks (1994, 2011), Calgary Flames (2004), Oilers (2006), Ottawa Senators (2007) and Canadiens (2021) have come shut since, however couldn’t end the job.

The Canucks, who sit among the many groups on the high of the standings, and Winnipeg Jets have had robust begins to the season, whereas the Toronto Maple Leafs are additionally within the combine.

However time will inform if hockey’s holy grail makes its approach again over the border this spring for the primary time in additional than three many years in 2024 — or if Canada’s Cup drought will stretch into its thirty second yr.

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