It’s easily the early feel-good story of training camp for the PWHL’s Toronto Sceptres.
Natalie Spooner is fully healthy again and looking like the player that won MVP honours in the league in its inaugural season.
The torn ACL from two playoffs ago that cost her half of this past season and a big chunk of her effectiveness when she did return is a thing of the past. Spooner shared a story on Tuesday as the Sceptres opened training camp about when she fully put the injury behind her.
“It’s kind of a funny story,” Spooner began. “I had it on for a lot of the time when we had our first Olympic training block (in Calgary in early September) and I was talking to Zach Hyman (who was also in Calgary training with the Canadian Olympic men’s hopefuls).
“I had heard he had the same surgery as me and I was telling him I was feeling slow. He was saying ‘Don’t worry, it comes back after the year or whatever.’ Then he asked me ‘Are you running? What are you doing? Are you in the brace?’
“So I said ‘I’m in the brace’ and he said ‘Get out of the brace. It will help you so much.’”
That was all the incentive Spooner needed, ditching the brace that next day and has not looked back since.
“Zach Hyman told me to get out of the brace, so I got out of the brace,” she said.
Spooner put up 27 points (including 20 goals) in 24 games during her MVP campaign in 2023-24, but only managed two goals and three assists for five points over 14 games after returning from injury in 2025.