Team Canada women’s hockey veteran Brianne Jenner offers wisdom and leadership 

Brianne Jenner is a stalwart of Team Canada’s women’s hockey team. The 33-year-old from Oakville, Ontario is set to make her 11th world championship appearance for Team Canada when the IIHF Women’s World Championship kicks off in Ceske Budejovice, Czechia on April 9.

Jenner is a three-time Olympic medallist, winning gold at Sochi 2014 and Beijing 2022, as well as silver at PyeongChang 2018. At Beijing 2022, Jenner was named MVP of the Olympic tournament, scoring nine goals to tie the record for a single Olympic Games, all while wearing an “A” for Canada.

With the launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and its first season beginning in January 2024, Jenner was named captain of the Ottawa Charge. This cemented her place in hockey history—along with fellow Team Canada players Marie-Philip Poulin (Montreal Victoire), Micah Zandee-Hart (New York Sirens) and Blayre Turnbull (Toronto Sceptres)—as inaugural captains of original six PWHL teams.

Olympic.ca caught up with Jenner ahead of the world championship to chat about her perspective on the impact of the PWHL, her Olympic inspiration, and the realities of juggling motherhood and professional sport.

You’re the first captain of the Ottawa Charge, an original six PWHL team, which is now in its second season as a league. The league has been extremely successful and part of a wave of emphasis on women’s sport in North America generally. Can you talk about your career trajectory and how perhaps that might be different for younger girls who are growing up now dreaming of playing professional hockey?

I just feel super lucky that I got a chance to play in this league. A lot of teammates that came before me just missed out on that window. So I certainly feel really grateful, but I’m also just really excited for the next generation of players that this is their reality now. They’re not going to know any different. And that’s so wonderful. 

I think of what my daughter is able to see with this league, and how she doesn’t think of a difference between what boys and girls can dream of doing in terms of hockey. And I also think it’s so important that my boys see that, too. They’re going to grow up and see strong, confident women playing professional sports, and I think that’s great for their development as well. 

How does it feel to be a part of a cohort of players who are that very visible example to the next generation? 

It’s really special. I think it really hit home [during] last year’s hockey season. It felt like more than a hockey season—it felt like the beginning of an amazing movement, in a way. 

When you go to a PWHL game live, there’s a really special energy in the rink. You have all those youth hockey players there that are getting to see their dreams in front of them for the first time. But you also get so many different people, demographics coming out to the rink. You get a lot of older women who had that dream as well and played hockey, reffed, coached, and were part of what got our sport to where it is. They’re there celebrating together and enjoying that together. I think that’s really special too. It just sort of felt like a big celebration last year of something that has been building and building for many decades. 

Milano Cortina 2026 will be the first Olympic Games since the development of the PWHL. What do you think the impact of the league might have on Olympic play?

I think it’s going to have a huge impact, maybe not necessarily on the on-ice performance, but I think just the preparation. Previously, countries like Canada and the USA would centralize, and you’d spend the whole season with your national team gearing up to the Olympics. You’d be training like many other Olympic athletes, in a way that’s built around the quad, built around priming and peaking at the Olympics. That’s going to look a lot different now. It’ll look more like it has looked in the past for NHL players.

There’s going to be a lot more touch points throughout the season with your national teams and probably pre-season camps and doing as much preparation in terms of getting on the same page—systems and tactics and all that. But the reality is that you’re going to be coming in off a really busy schedule with the PWHL for the most part, or maybe with your college team, depending on the player, and [going] right into a major tournament. So it just presents different challenges, and like any Olympics, I think it’s going to be the country that navigates those challenges the best and has the best preparation that will be successful.

Do you have a favorite memory of your own hockey career?

It’s hard to pick one. I think the first things that come to mind are the celebrations after Olympic wins. Sochi 2014 was the first gold medal I won at an Olympics, and I had my parents there in Sochi. That moment with them after…at that point they had sacrificed more than anybody else in my life for me to have that opportunity. It’s really difficult to make it to an Olympic Games without a great support system. So that really sticks out to me. 

The Beijing 2022 Olympic tournament, I wasn’t able to have my family with me. FaceTiming them and the celebrations with the girls after what was a really kind of challenging year—as it was for any athlete, anybody in the world! Those moments stick out for sure.

Do you have a favorite memory as a fan of your sport?

I think the most formative memory for me was Salt Lake City 2002. I think you hear a lot of Canadian female players say that. Watching that Salt Lake City win, I remember being like this far [pinches fingers] from the television, [being] so mad at the refs, as every Canadian was. 

In that moment I was like, “I want to do this. I want to play on this team.” I thought those women were the coolest people on Earth, my heroes—a lot of them still are! 

A whole group of people had come over to our house to watch it. I played boys hockey at the time and a few of my teammates were over. And it was just validating to see women on TV and to see them playing at such a high level and battling through adversity. I’ll never forget watching that game.

How do you feel you’ve grown as an athlete, or maybe in your approach to your sport as you’ve gone through different phases of your life?

Oh god, I could write a novel. I’ve learned just as much this hockey season as I did when I was 22. I think that maybe that’s the biggest lesson, is that there’s always something to learn. 

One thing that really sort of sticks out for me, comparing development as a younger athlete to now, is that you realize the importance of the mental performance side of things and how that really becomes a separator. 

When you’re younger and your body’s still developing, you still have a lot to gain in terms of reaching your physical peak. In the Hockey Canada program, you’re getting used to the training load that it takes to build to an Olympics, to play in the world championships, whatever it might be. 

And then you realize when you get to those tournaments, just how important it is to continue to work on mental performance. I think if you talk to a lot of Olympic athletes, that’s probably what they would say is the biggest separator between gold and silver, silver and bronze. Sometimes it just can come down to that. I feel like I’m always learning and always trying to improve that part of my game.

You mentioned your support team and how important they are. There were discussions leading into Paris 2024, that will continue into Milano Cortina 2026, about how to better support athlete parents. What has helped you find balance—if balance is even the appropriate word—as a professional athlete and a mom? What are the best ways to support athlete parents?

I think one of the best ways to support athlete parents is just the access to being able to bring, when possible, kids on the road. One of the biggest challenges that I’ve found, personally, is just the time away. It’s really special when you can have those moments where the family is with you, you’re together, and you’re able to kind of share those memories together and also just provide the care that your children involve. 

I’ve been really lucky in the support system. Both my parents and my in-laws have been really supportive. My wife is an unbelievable rock, and as a high performance athlete herself in the past, she understands the lifestyle and the sacrifice and the things that we have to adjust to. 

We were really lucky last year with the PWHL to be able to bring our twins and our daughter on the road a little bit. They’re a little bit older now, so we don’t get that opportunity as much. But when you’re able to do that, it certainly makes the grind of the season a lot easier when you can have your family with you. So it’s nice to see that at least those issues are being addressed and solutions are being looked for, especially at the Olympic level. If you’re a breastfeeding parent or the primary caregiver, that has to be taken into account. Those supports are necessary, especially for the athlete to be able to perform at their best. 

This core of players on the national team have just kind of started having children and we’re really lucky because our GM is very aware of those issues. She has a young daughter herself, and she’s always checking in with us and trying to make accommodations where possible. So, we’re lucky that way, but you can’t rely on someone having that experience. It has to be in the policy.

Rapid fire with Brianne Jenner

Do you have any pre-game rituals or routines?

Coffee is non-negotiable. That’s always a big part of my routine, getting coffee before heading to the rink. I usually play keep up or sewer [ball] with teammates before. And then I always do my left skate first. 

An athlete that you look up to?

Hard to pick one! I think one of the coolest fan experiences I’ve had was watching our women’s soccer team and when they won their gold [at Tokyo 2020]. And I think just going back to my comment about mental performance, seeing the way our goalkeeper, Steph Labbé, handled that shootout—I was blown away. I was like, “Well, that’s a superstar.” Not only in her skills, but just in her mindset. And so that’s something that sometimes, when I’m looking for that energy, I’ll think of her and the rest of her teammates in that moment.

If you weren’t a hockey player, what sport would you want to do?

There’s sports I’d want to do, and then the sports I’d be capable of [laughs]. 

I grew up doing team sports and I’ve always loved team sports so much, but I think it’d be cool to have an individual sport experience as something different. So I think it would be really cool to be a road cyclist. I think I’d be a little bit too scared of the crashes, but hypothetically I’ll pick that.

Best advice you’ve received from a coach or a teammate?

I think a reminder that I’ve received from teammates and mental skills coaches before is to be grateful for every day and the opportunity that we have. I think when you’re in your high performance sport world, you get so caught up in your process and the results and what’s coming next. When you take a step back and actually appreciate what you get to do for a living, and the people you get to do it with, it’s pretty special. So I think that’s always a great reminder, just to be grateful everyday for the opportunity.

I think becoming a mom, and being a mom of three, has made it so much easier to have that perspective. As much as there’s an added workload to your day, I think it’s made me a better athlete, because it gives me that instant perspective every time I come home of how lucky I am and what’s really important in life. So I’m just really grateful for my wife and those three that make the whole journey so special.