Sarah Nurse has lived her whole life on the ice. The Hamilton, Ontario icon has been skating since she was three, playing hockey since she was five, and advocating for equal representation for minorities in the hockey world since she was a teenager.
Over the past two decades, Nurse has risen to the top of the hockey world. She won a silver medal at the 2011 Ontario Women’s Hockey Association provincials, a national title with the Ontario Red at the 2011 National Women’s Under-18 Championship, and a world title with Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team in 2013.
Nurse has also played on two Canadian Olympic teams and assisted in the foundation of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) and, later, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).
But throughout all that time, representation has been scarce. As a young biracial girl playing high-level minor hockey against boys, Nurse was no stranger to people questioning her place in the game.
“People have always doubted my decision to play hockey because of my gender and my race,” Nurse recalled in an interview with Hockey Canada. “There were obviously comments and remarks made over the course of my career that were not always malicious, but they made me think about people’s perception of race.”
Nurse knows she cannot change these perceptions alone, but she’s doing her part. From 2013 to 2017, Nurse attended the University of Wisconsin and played NCAA Division 1 Hockey for the Wisconsin Badgers. In 2016, when a student wore a costume depicting Barack Obama being lynched at a Badgers Football game, Nurse posted a statement condemning the student and highlighting the culture of racism in student athletics at the University of Wisconsin.
After competing at the 2018 Olympics, Nurse was drafted second overall by the Toronto Furies in the 2018 CWHL Draft. However, her career with the Furies was short-lived, as the league folded in 2019.
The folding of the CWHL meant that North America had only one women’s hockey league. Nurse was determined to change that.
Along with several other talented female hockey players, Nurse helped found the PWHPA (now the PWHLPA) in 2019. The PWHPA’s mission was to promote, advance and support a single, viable professional women’s hockey league in North America that provided a united voice to players advocating for the creation of a sustainable league.
In the wake of the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, Nurse spoke with Sportsnet’s Cameron Campbell, urging Canadians not to separate themselves from the racism in the United States, citing the discrimination against Viola Desmond.
On Sept. 2, 2020, the PWHPA released a statement condemning police brutality and racial injustice. Later that day, Canadian goaltender Liz Knox resigned from the PWHPA board, citing the association’s “blind spot” regarding racial issues and representation in hockey, giving her seat to Sarah Nurse.
“I want the arena to be a multicultural space and representative of what our society is now,” Nurse said in a statement to ESPN. “In Canada, we call hockey our national sport. But it can’t be our national sport if it’s excluding a ton of our population.”
Two months later, in November 2020, Nurse and fellow PWHPA player Marie-Philip Poulin worked with Mattel and Tim Hortons to create two limited-edition Barbie dolls as part of Barbie’s You Can Be Anything program. The dolls were initially set to be released in August, but to recognize the diversity of hockey, the launch was delayed to allow for the production of a Black doll.
For Nurse, this was only the beginning of a long-awaited boost in representation. Just months after helping Team Canada win gold at the Beijing Olympics, it was announced that Nurse would be the first female athlete to grace the cover of EA Sports’ NHL franchise, joining Anaheim Ducks superstar Trevor Zegras on the cover of NHL 23.
In June 2023, the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises worked with the PWHPA to buy out the Premier Hockey Federation, a rival league boycotted by many players due to its lack of pay and benefits. The resources from the two leagues would be combined to launch a new and unified women’s professional league, something that the PWHPA had always set out to do.
With the PWHL officially founded, Nurse joined the executive committee for the league’s labour union, the PWHL Players Association, as a player representative.
“What we have gone through, what we have been able to build and what we have overcome — it’s pretty cool to take a step back and realize that last year we were just practicing in different hubs, and then further back to where we were four years ago,” Nurse said in an interview with the NHLPA. “But I try not to look back too much because there is a lot of amazing positivity happening right now for us, and I am trying to embrace that.”
The league held its inaugural draft in September 2023. Nurse was one of three players, alongside fellow Canadian Olympians Blayre Turnbull and Renata Fast, signed in a pre-draft with PWHL Toronto.
Once the league was officially formed, Nurse recognized the importance of continuing her role with the players’ union and providing representation to BIPOC girls. Nurse teamed up with Black Girl Hockey Club Canada and partnered with Rogers to create Nursey Night, an initiative to introduce more young girls to hockey and help make the game a more inclusive space.
Nurse plans to build on the success of Nursey Night, which is in its second year, by adding additional programs and special events that teach girls leadership skills beyond the ice. In August 2024, Nurse hosted her first-ever Summer Summit, a focused initiative combining panel discussions, on-ice sessions, and networking opportunities to make hockey more accessible to all.
In October 2024, PWHL Toronto was rebranded to the Toronto Sceptres, commemorating Toronto’s regal history and commanding presence.
“I grew up in Hamilton, so not too far away, but being able to live here and experience the food, the culture, and the people is amazing,” Nurse said in an interview with Toronto Life. “I feel like our fan base is so representative of Toronto. And to be able to say that you’re a professional athlete who plays on a Toronto sports team is iconic.”
Most recently, Nurse partnered with Revlon to become the brand’s first Canadian ambassador. In a “get ready with me” (GRWM) style video, Nurse said she had been using Revlon products during game days for the Toronto Sceptres.
“I take a lot of pride in representing Black women in hockey,” Nurse said in an interview with Yahoo Life. “With fewer Black women in hockey, you naturally have more eyes on you, but I don’t think that more eyes on you is a bad thing. Through the years, I’ve tried to use that as a way to show … that hockey is a place where you can dress how you want and look like yourself.”
A powerful role model for women and girls everywhere, Nurse’s successful career is a testament to her hard work, determination for equality, and fearless authenticity.