With national gold & world U18 bronze in her bag, Jessica Cheung shoots for more medals with Ottawa Lady Sens

By Emma Zhao

Ottawa’s Jessica Cheung remembers spending many of her most formative years building makeshift hockey rinks in the backyard with her father. Now, she’s moved onto international ice.

Earlier this month, Cheung made her debut for Team Canada at the World Under-18 Women’s Hockey Championships in Switzerland, where she collected a bronze medal.

The Canadians were totally dominant in their five wins at eight-day tournament – 6-0 was the smallest margin of victory – but had one big hiccup in a 4-2 semi-final defeat to Czechia (despite outshooting the Czechs 47-12).

Canada rebounded the next day to blast Finland 8-1 in the bronze medal match on Jan. 14. Cheung played an average of roughly 11 minutes per game on the Canadian blue line, picking up two assists at the tournament.

“I just wanted to be the best player, the best teammate that I could be,” recounts the 17-year-old defender. “I just did my very best to stay positive and to take in every moment and enjoy the fact that I was there, and the fact that I was able to be a part of such a big team.”

This peak moment has been cooking ever since she was five years old. Cheung started playing competitive hockey at age seven, and is now in her third season with the strong Ottawa Lady Sens Ontario Women’s Hockey U22 Elite League team.

Cheung’s world bronze follows the silver medal her club team won at last year’s provincials, and the gold she earned with Team Ontario at November’s Canadian U18 championships – which helped cement her selection to the national team – gives her a full set of medal colours.

“We’re very, very proud of her,” underlines Ottawa Lady Sens coach Hanna-Riikka Turpeinin, who was a U18 worlds player herself for her native Finland in 2008 before moving to Ottawa in 2016 and joining the Lady Sens organization in 2019.

Turpeinin says that Cheung is a talented player who works hard on her craft, both on and off the ice. The assistant captain’s team-centred mindset shows on the ice and in her ability to support and uphold her teammates, she adds, and those traits were a big factor in Cheung’s success at the worlds.

“She has a kind of growth mindset,” Turpeinin highlights. “She’s always asking questions, she’s very coachable, and she’s always looking for a way to get better.”

Next season, Cheung will be joining the Syracuse University Orange to play NCAA Div. 1 hockey on scholarship.

“I know she’ll do well not just in the hockey side of things, but in life as well,” Turpeinin says of the Holy Trinity Catholic High School senior who carries an academic average north of 90%. “She’s just such a great person, and I’m hoping she’ll remember and treasure her time with us.”

Lady Sens on hot streak

Turpeinin and Cheung are hoping there may be some more hardware to come before season’s end too. The Lady Sens have been on fire since the calendar turned to 2024.

While at the worlds, Cheung missed Ottawa’s three-game road trip sweep of Toronto (who they beat 7-1), Mississauga (4-1) and Brampton (6-1), but she returned in time to trounce London 8-1 and Windsor Southwest 9-0 last weekend on home ice.

Ottawa’s Grace Outwater scored five times in the two most recent contests to rank second overall in league goal-scoring with 31.

The winning streak lifted the Lady Sens into a tie for fourth place in the 20-team, top-tier OWHL U22 red division. They’ve won two-thirds of their 27 games to earn 53 points – three ahead of the eighth-place Nepean Wildcats, who were the last team to beat Ottawa (2-1 on Dec. 17).

That annual pre-holiday meeting between the local junior women’s teams also supported Do It For Daron, a youth mental health initiative named after former Lady Sens player Daron Richardson, who died by suicide in 2010.

Cheung’s role model is Team Canada defender Erin Ambrose, who is a mental health advocate as well. In 2020, Ambrose wrote an article called In My Own Words, opening up about her anxiety and depression.

“It’s just something that isn’t really talked about in the hockey world,” Cheung indicates. “So, just the fact that she was able to overcome that and still be such an amazing player … I really look up to that and I aspire to be the kind of player that she is.”

Ambrose was recently in town for the debut of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, when her Montreal team skated away with an overtime victory over host Ottawa on Jan. 2.

A number of the Lady Sens’ biggest stars from years past also made their first professional appearances in the nation’s capital this past week. Jamie Lee Rattray scored her first PWHL goal on Wednesday for Boston, while Rebecca Leslie and Erica Howe played at TD Place the previous night for Toronto alongside Nepean Wildcats product Sam Cogan.

Lady Sens grads Stephanie McKeough and Kenzie Lalonde were also involved as a Boston assistant coach and TSN play-by-play commentator, respectively.

Cheung and her teammates have been thrilled to see the PWHL come to life, both as fans and as potential future pro prospects.

“It had always just been, ‘what’s the next step?’” Cheung reflects. ”It’s just so awesome to see that now there’s more than that, that little girls have something they can aspire to become, and that you can actually have professional hockey as a career now.”