ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE — The first women's world hockey championship in Czechia has Canada's Carla MacLeod behind the bench of the host country.
It's another in a series of coaching firsts for the Calgarian in her fourth season as head coach of the Czech women.
MacLeod was the first female coach hired by Czech Hockey in 2022. She navigated the women to their first world championship medal that year in Herning, Denmark, and backed that up with another bronze in 2023 in Brampton, Ont.
The Czechs lost the bronze-medal game to Finland last year in Utica, N.Y., where MacLeod was the only female head coach among the 10 countries.
Her players will compete in the pinnacle of the women's international hockey season in front of home fans for the first time in their lives starting Wednesday here.
"It's a big deal," MacLeod said Monday. "It's not lost on us what this moment can do for the sport in the country."
The 42-year-old has an inkling of the emotions her players will feel Wednesday against Switzerland.
The former Canadian defender won world championship gold in Winnipeg in 2007 and Olympic gold in Vancouver in 2010.
"I can't speak to any experience from a coaching perspective and hosting an event of this magnitude, but with my playing days, I was fortunate enough to play at a couple events in Canada," MacLeod said.
"Once the puck drops, it's just getting your feet under you in those first few few moments. It's not taking away from taking it in. I remember in Vancouver, when I was stretching in warm ups on the ice, I just looked around, popped my mouth guard out and just smiled thinking 'how am I here?'
"I hope our players will have those moments and just recognize, from a hockey perspective, once we settle in we'll be doing what we need to do to play our style."
Ceske Budejovice is a city of about 100,000 people situated 150 kilometres south of Prague, which co-hosted the men's world championship last year with Ostrava.
Czechia has 1,544 female players in a population of 10 million, compared to Canada's 108,000 in 40 million.
The Czech women climbed the ladder over the last decade out of the Division 1 world championship. They avoided relegation in 2017 and qualified for their first Olympic Games in 2022 before breaking into the world's top five countries.
"There's a pretty special story that's transpired in the last three and a half, four years for this group," MacLeod said.
"Many of these women have played on this team for over 10 years. They've really seen the wide gamut of what it means to be on the national team in Czech, from trying to work its way up to the top tournament, to then stave off relegation and ultimately qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 2022, and then find themselves on a podium.
"Now you get to be a host nation and you're in the A Pool. It's quite a journey."
The Ottawa Charge's head coach in the Professional Women's Hockey League has three Charge players on her Czech roster, including Tereza Vanisova who ranked second in PWHL goals (15) before the international break.
The 29-year-old forward says she couldn't have imagined when she was the lone girl playing on a boys team that her country would ever host a women's championship, and that the Czech women would be considered medal contenders.
"That's amazing," Vanisova said. "It was a tough journey for us. It's really nice that we got here."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2025.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
