TORONTO — Not even six years ago — before Sarah Nurse’s Olympic medals, before the Olympic record she set, before the Cheerios boxes and Barbie dolls bearing her image — Canada was content to leave her off its national women’s hockey team.
It was early 2017, and Canadian executives were skeptical that Nurse was ready for the world championship stage. Maybe, she was told, there would be a place at the next year’s Olympics.
Nurse made that Olympic team, and then another, and is now among the most ascendant women in hockey. Six months after she became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in hockey and set the single-tournament Olympic points record, Nurse is central to her country’s ambitions in the world championship competition that began Thursday.