Steve Milton: Energetic Emma Maltais part of Team Canada’s large local web

If you could recycle the electricity in the arena whenever the Canadian national women's hockey team plays the U.S. there would never be a global power crisis.

The audience spits it out like lava, the American and Canadian players' world-class athlete's bodies and minds vibrate with it like tuning forks.

But even amid all that overwhelming vitality - the latest instalment is Monday night at the 2023 World Championships in Brampton - you tend to notice the energy of Emma Maltais.

The 23-year-old from Burlington, always seems to be the first woman on the puck in the offensive zone. Part of that is the Canadian system of aggressive forechecking, nicknamed F-1, but the bulk derives from Maltais's natural skill and irrepressible personality. She is enthusiasm personified, in skates, on the bench, in conversation.

In her third senior Worlds after starring for Canada's U18s, the 5-foot-3 Maltais will be the shortest Canadian on the ice Monday night, but there is nothing small about her game or her approach to life.

Coming into this team I was wide-eyed, so astonished to play with such amazing players, people that I watched growing up and I tried to learn from them every day," she told The Spectator. Now I'm taking a growth mindset, trying to create an identity, versus just being the new girl. It was like wow' at the beginning and it still is, learning every day, but now I want to take that next step. I want to keep my strengths - speed, physical play, tenaciousness, - but also grow my game: create those offensive zone turnovers, play well in the other zones, take the puck to the net more often."

She finished her five-year career at Ohio State just three weeks ago with a 1-0 loss to perennial power Wisconsin in the NCAA Frozen Four final, and graduated the program as the school's all-time leader in several offensive categories including career assists, points and post-season points. Most years she was among the nation's top scorers.

Ohio State had never made the women's Frozen Four in its 19-year history before Maltais arrived. In the five years she played (athletes were granted an extra year because of the pandemic), the Buckeyes made the Final Four three times. In her year away to sequester with the 2022 Olympic team, Ohio State won the national title. This is her third full term with the national squad and in that time, Canada squad has won both world championships and the Olympic gold medal.

It's been so much fun to see her come into her own," Hamilton's Olympic record-setter Sarah Nurse says of her younger teammate. She has such a positive impact on our team on and off the ice. She's always the first one in on the forecheck, wreaking havoc on the forecheck. She's offensively talented so she's able to get to good spots and retrieve pucks. And off the ice she's a firecracker, she's a sparkplug. She provides a lot of energy in the locker-room."

Nurse and Maltais are part of a latticework of local connections on Team Canada. Nurse, Brianne Jenner, and Kristin O'Neill are former Stoney Creek Sabres, Maltais and Renata Fast are from Burlington and when she was in high school, Maltais played for the PWHL's Oakville Hornets with Jaime Bourbonnais and Sarah Fillier.,

Everyone from Ontario knows of each other," Maltais says. I think all of us were really grateful to play in the PWHL. It's a great league and it got us ready to play in the NCAA."

There's a myriad of personal links that extend beyond the geography of childhood: The right winger on Maltais's line is 21-year-old Danielle Serdachny from Edmonton, who plays at Colgate and got two goals and two assists in a weekend series this season against Ohio State. Maltais had a goal and two assists in one of those games. Their centre on Canada's energy line is O'Neill.

And in Canada's tournament-opening 4-0 win, the opposing goalie for Switzerland was Andrea Braendli, the goalie at Ohio State for four years. They arrived on campus together in 2018.

We love each other so much and are really close friends," Braendli says. We cheer each other on even though we're on different teams. I count myself lucky to have played on the same team as her and to have her as my captain. She's an incredible human, she's always so cheerful and has always motivated people. I'm so proud of her.

It's incredible to see her path and I can't wait to see where her journey leads."

Along that journey will be further education and professional hockey. She graduated in physiotherapy in 2022, studied bioethics this past year and has applied to physical therapy schools in Canada, to keep my options open" in hockey.

She will stick with the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association, which already has the Dream Gap Tour and is hinting about larger things on the near horizon.

I really trust everyone in charge and I want to follow in their footsteps," Maltais says. Being surrounded by these girls now, I want to play with the best. I'm really proud of what they stand for and want to be part of that."

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com