Oakville Hornets alumni Sarah Fillier has begun her rookie season in the PWHL, and she's been turning heads all over the league.
Coming into this season as the first overall pick in the most recent PWHL draft, many had high expectations for her as she would be entering the PWHL after multiple great performances for Team Canada at international tournaments.
So far this season, all of those expectations have been met as Fillier as scored 11 points in 10 games and is leading the league in both goals and points.
But like all hockey players, it's been a long road for her to get to where she is.
Fillier grew up in Georgetown and wanted to play hockey at a very young age because her brother played.
She began to play in boy's hockey leagues in the Halton Hills area and Fillier played in those leagues for a few years.
However once body-checking began to be implemented in the boy's leagues, she and her family began to search for high level girls hockey leagues outside of Halton Hills since their were not many in that area at the time.
After searching for teams, the Fillier family found their landing spot with the Oakville Hornets organization.
"I remember meeting with Brandi Cochrane who was the junior coach at the time and I loved her philosophy," said Fillier.
"It was a good fit for my family and an easy commute from Georgetown."
Fillier describes her time with the Hornets as the most fun years of her minor hockey career. She specifically remembers when she played on the Hornets team that won what was dubbed as "The Triple Crown."
Which is winning the entire league, the playoffs, and the lower lakes Championship.
While playing for the Hornets in 2017, Fillier got a call that helped her achieve a dream.
She was chosen to represent Canada at the U18 Women's World Championships.
Fillier flew with the team to Czechia for the tournament and she scored three goals in five games.
Sadly Canada lost the gold medal in overtime to the USA.
The following year, Fillier was asked back to the U18 team and was the captain of the squad.
Fillier scored one goal and four assists in six games during the tournament but was sadly unable to help Canada reach the Gold Medal game as they won bronze.
After playing for Canada at the U18s, and graduating high school, Fillier had the opportunity to play NCAA hockey south of the border and had several offers.
She weighed all of options and decided to play at popular Ivy league school Princeton. Fillier decided to attend Princeton because she wanted a great education and at the time there were no successful professional women's hockey leagues for her to play in as a full-time career.
She wanted to make sure that she had a good education to use for a career path if she wasn't able to play professional hockey as a career and felt that Princeton would be the best school to give her that chance.
"From the day I stepped on campus when I was in the 10th grade I knew I wanted to go there. The excellent in Academics and also their hockey program was a huge draw for me since I was able to get the best of both worlds."
Fillier spent four full hockey seasons at Princeton and was a student at the university for six years.
In her first year with the Princeton Tigers, Fillier lead her team in scoring with 57 points in 29 games and helped lead her team to the playoffs.
During her second year, Fillier was given the honour of captain and once again lead her team in scoring.
She and the Tigers won their NCAA league and were about to play in the NCAA playoff tournament but sadly COVID shut down the tournament before they were going to fly out to Boston to play.
The NCAA eventually resumed, and Fillier played her final two seasons at Princeton from 2022-2024.
"The overall environment at Princeton was so much fun," she said. "I loved the girls but it was so cool to meet so many different people outside of the rink."
"Princeton was such a diverse campus with so many things going on, I really felt like I got to explore being a student at a college."
But during the summer of 2021, Fillier was given the chance to play for the Women's National team at the 2021 Women's World Championships.
She was given the chance to play with greats like Marie Philip Poulin, Renata Fast, and Sarah Nurse.
Although this was her first time playing for the National Team, it was also the first time the world got to see what a superstar Fillier is when the lights are shining the brightest
Fillier was not only just a depth piece for Canada, she had an incredible impact as she scored six points in seven games to help Canada win Gold at the Wold Championships for the first time since 2012.
Around seven months later, Fillier competed at the Olympics with Canada and put on an all-star performance. She scored eight goals, and three assists for 11 points in seven games and helped Canada defeat the USA in the Gold Medal game to bring home a medal for the country.
Shortly after the Olympics, she once again played at the Women's World Championships and scored 11 points in seven games again helping Canada win gold.
The Following year in 2023 she returned to the World Championships and scored seven goals and four assists in seven games and won tournament MVP but sadly Canada lost to the United States in a thrilling Gold Medal Game.
Then last season at the World Championships she scored only three points in seven games which is a drastic dip in production by her standards but helped Canada win Gold and I'm sure she would rather have the Championship then the scoring title.
After her final year in the NCAA, Fillier made the decision to declare for the 2024 PWHL draft.
Many speculated that Fillier would be the first overall pick heading into the draft and sure enough, the New York Sirens turned that speculation into reality.
Fillier was obviously honoured to be selected number one, but the experience was very odd for her because it was the first hockey accomplishment that she was able to celebrate with just her and her family.
"As a hockey player you are so used to celebrating things as a team like winning Championships, tournaments, and games. For me [the draft] was so weird because I was celebrating something that was just me which I found so strange."
"But for me it was really cool because I got to share the moment with my parents. Normally when you celebrate a game in hockey they are up in the stands and you can look up to them but this time they were right beside me and I got to give them a big hug."
With many expectations put on her heading into this season, Fillier has so far met all of them and is making the hockey world aware of her game and her skills.
As the season goes on, she hopes to keep up her scoring ways and help lead New York to a Championship.