5% more: Sarah Nurse pushing to reach next level in Vancouver

It was a conversation with PWHL Vancouver general manager Cara Gardner Morey that made Sarah Nurse realize joining one of the league's expansion teams could actually be the best thing for her career.

"She basically said to me, 'Nursey, I feel like you are this incredible player, this incredible person. You've done amazing things on and off the ice, but I feel like there's 5% of you that I want to tap into, that I can help take you to that absolute next level,'" Nurse detailed to theScore at her Summer Summit in August. "And that really resonated with me."

That helped put Nurse "over the edge," in her words, to sign with Vancouver after the Toronto Sceptres left the forward unprotected in the PWHL's expansion process, which limited teams to initially protecting just three players.

A motivated Nurse pushing to reach new heights is a scary thought for the rest of the PWHL - and for Team USA entering an Olympic year. After all, the 30-year-old Hamilton native already owns the Olympic scoring record of 18 points (set in 2022) and ranked second in PWHL scoring in the league's inaugural 2024 campaign.

Last season didn't go according to plan for Nurse. After a formidable start, she sustained a lower-body injury at the Rivalry Series in February that derailed the rest of her campaign. Nurse missed over six weeks and, upon her return in late March, managed just one goal the rest of the PWHL season, including a second straight goalless postseason.

A fresh opportunity awaits Nurse, who'd played in Toronto since graduating from Wisconsin in 2018. Gardner Morey and head coach Brian Idalski lead a completely new group that could be just what Nurse needs to unlock that extra 5%.

"It's really gotten me to push myself and grow," Nurse said of moving to a new city. "In Toronto, I've been surrounded by so many people that I've been around for so long that I have such a high level of respect for. I have coaches, I have people on staff, I have teammates who I've been with for seven to 10 years, and I absolutely adore all of them. I really think that this is a great step for me to break out of my shell, to break out of, I guess, the mold I've been in in Toronto, and really push myself to be an even better version of myself in Vancouver."

Moving on from Toronto was never part of Nurse's original plan; she wrote in her goodbye letter to the city that she never thought she'd leave. The expansion process gave Nurse a first-hand lesson in the business side of hockey.

"It's cutthroat and ruthless, in the best way," Nurse said. "Obviously, the expansion was very aggressive. In a startup, in what we're trying to do, it really does have to be. I know people talked about three players being protected being ridiculously low, but in order to expand to new markets and create franchises that are going to be able to compete from Day 1, that's what we had to do. You may not have agreed with it, I may not have agreed with it - like, we didn't love the whole process, but it's what was necessary.

"Our league's a startup. At the end of the day, what we're building isn't necessarily for us. We're getting to reap some benefits right now, but it's for 20, 30, 40 years from now, when this is just the absolute buzzing, booming business from coast to coast."

Motivation is high for Nurse entering Vancouver's inaugural year, as well as what will almost certainly be her third Olympics. Just don't expect any extra juice against Toronto.

"People always say like, 'Oh, you're probably gonna go out hard against Toronto,' and I'm like, 'I don't know if I'm going out harder against Toronto.' Genuinely, every single time I hit the ice, it is with the exact same intention. I want to win a hockey game. I don't care if I'm playing Toronto, Team USA, the kids down the street, I want to beat them, right?" Nurse said.

"I think that there's going to be a lot of motivation. There will be girls coming in with chips on their shoulders. At the end of the day, I have a lot of respect and a lot of grace for the GMs, because they could only protect three players. I don't look at myself as being more worthy of being protected than the three players that were (protected by Toronto), because those are three incredible players as well."

While some around the PWHL spent part of their summer hosting hockey camps, Nurse took a different approach to giving back.

Nurse hosted her Summer Summit in downtown Toronto on Aug. 23: a conference designed to show young women the broad range of career opportunities connected to sports. Guest speakers ranged in background from business to fashion and more, all with the goal of inspiring the next generation.

"You don't have to be an athlete to actually be involved in sport," said Nurse, who was inspired to create the conference after being a panelist at the espnW Summit Canada in 2023. "I wanted to show people that there is a place in sport for absolutely everybody, and that doesn't have to include being on the ice or on the field or on the court."