How Carla MacLeod is bringing "blue-collar" Alberta hockey to the world

Carla MacLeod still treasures the hockey card and, even after three decades, can easily recall the message scrawled across the image of Team Canada’s Judy Diduck, written by the defender herself: “To Carla. Keep working hard. Maybe one day we'll play together.”

For years, growing up in Calgary, MacLeod proudly displayed Diduck’s card in her bedroom, its message a daily reminder of where the sport could take a hockey-loving kid from Alberta. Diduck herself was proof, after all — the Edmonton native was the first Albertan named to the women’s national team; she played in the first-ever women’s world championship in 1990 and the first-ever Olympic women’s hockey tournament eight years later in Nagano. 

"Judy was a beacon for me,” says MacLeod. “As a goal, as a player, I always wanted to be like her."

MacLeod doesn’t often afford herself time to pause and reflect on the path she’s traveled since those dreams first formed in Calgary. But as she thinks back now, fresh into the new year and focused on her second season behind the bench of the PWHL’s Ottawa Charge and her fourth at the helm of the Czech national women’s team, it’s not the accolades, the MVPs, the medals or the personal milestones she’s eager to highlight. It’s the people. 

“The reason I'm most privileged is because of the people I get to meet,” says MacLeod, who won four world championship medals and celebrated two golden victories on the Olympic stage with Team Canada before hanging up her skates and pursuing coaching full-time in 2010. "I'm fortunate to be able to do what I've done with the group of people that I've been able to do it with in all sorts of different markets and countries.”

As far and wide as her coaching career has taken her — across town with Calgary’s Edge School U18 prep program and the U Sports circuit, across the globe with both the Japanese and Czech national teams, and across Canada at the helm of the Charge — she brings her Alberta roots with her, wherever she goes. 

“There's a blue-collar component to those that grow up in Alberta, and a willingness to, sort of, go that extra step when necessary,” MacLeod says of the province’s hockey identity. “There's an element to the game that we have innately ingrained in us in Alberta, where there's a work component.”

She points to one of the game’s greatest rivalries as proof. “We grew up, all of us, watching the Battle of Alberta and the intensity of those games, and the passion that is just entrenched in our province when it comes to this sport,” she says. “And as you earn your way into different opportunities, you realize the tools that you need to bring. So, I think there's a cultural piece to why we're that way, and I think there's just a grit piece to us, just because we're a smaller province."

MacLeod carries the province’s slogan, “Alberta Built,” as though it’s her personal motto. And in many ways, it is. 

Born in Spruce Grove, Alta., MacLeod calls her early childhood, and her introduction to hockey, a “classic Canadian story.” Her family lived on a cul de sac in a neighbourhood full of kids (she herself is one of four). Hockey was the common thread that connected them all. They played road hockey from the spring through fall, before competition moved to the outdoor rink built by the neighbourhood dads once winter set in. 

It was there she first developed her love of the game and saw firsthand how it could bring a community together. After moving to Calgary with her family when she was seven, MacLeod's passion grew along with her skills. 

The same drive that saw her rise through the ranks as a player — first, with Team Alberta, then on the NCAA circuit at Wisconsin before a six-year stint on the blue line of the Canadian National Women’s Team, just like Diduck (who she did eventually team up with for a season on the now-defunct Calgary Oval X-Treme) — is also what pushed her to pursue coaching after hanging up her skates in 2010. 

"I always had a passion for the game and I always felt like I wanted to help others be successful in the game. So, coaching seemed like a real natural next step," she says. She’d dipped her toe into coaching with her alma mater, as a graduate assistant with the Badgers for a season, but she wasn’t sure if she could make a career out of it, considering the lack of full-time coaching options in women’s hockey at the time. Fresh off the 2010 Games, though, she decided to take a leap, joining Scott Rivett’s coaching staff as a volunteer assistant with the Mount Royal University women’s team in Calgary to gain experience close to home.

“Scott's impact on me, letting me sort of just cut my teeth as a young coach just coming off the Vancouver Olympics — he trusted me to take the lead on things, and I was really grateful for that," says MacLeod. 

More opportunity came calling soon after — a little further away, this time. The Japanese women’s hockey team was looking to elevate its program, eying Olympic qualification ahead of Sochi 2014. They hadn't qualified since hosting the Games in Nagano in 1998, and consulted with longtime Team Canada coach and general manager — and fellow Albertan — Mel Davidson about whether she could recommend a fresh voice to help guide them. 

“They thought maybe a former Canadian player, and new coach, could have some impact,” says MacLeod, who joined head coach Yuji Iizuka’s staff as an assistant in 2011-12. With McLeod as an assistant, Team Japan qualified for the Sochi Games.

Her time working with Team Japan reinforced in her the lessons gleaned from years playing for and learning from Davidson, who remains a mentor to this day.

“I felt a big sense of responsibility to do well by that opportunity and to really work hard, because that's one thing I know from Mel and I've taken and admired from Mel, is she'll never be outworked — and that's a trait that I aspire to achieve as well,” says MacLeod.

MacLeod takes prides in being a student of the game, and putting in the work at every stop. Because for MacLeod, coaching is more about listening and learning from her players — understanding their needs and amplifying their strengths — than it is dictating her own style of play.

“I’m never bigger than the group,” she says. “I try to go in and bolster what they bring. I don't come in and say, 'This is the Carla MacLeod style of play.' I try to go in and say, 'Okay, what is our style of play, and how do I bolster that? How does our staff bolster it?”

The answer is different for every team. 

For Japan, it was all about endurance. “They were the fittest team I've ever worked with,” MacLeod says of the Japanese team she first began working with in 2011 “They were so disciplined and fit. So, we had to play to that. We had to wear teams down. We had to play an ultra-aggressive game so that we could take advantage of our strengths, and we were able to shape that from a system perspective and have them deliver on it. And it helped us win and get to the Olympics.”

For Team Czechia, it was the high hockey I.Q. on the roster that stood out from the start. “They move the puck so well. So, how do we bolster that into goals? Well, you have to get net-front presence, you have to be more threatening off of those great plays,” she explains. “You’ve got to make sure you take it to the net.”

Being able to bring her experience to help these programs thrive has been incredibly rewarding. Under MacLeod’s guidance, Czechia claimed its first women’s worlds medal, a bronze, in 2022, then repeated the feat the following year. They fell one goal shy of a third last April, losing to Finland in a shootout. This spring brings another milestone, as Czechia is set to host the tournament for the first time.

MacLeod is grateful to be part of that growth, to help them see their own strengths and understand how to win. 

“Now, they have a belief, both programs do, that they can win,” she says of her international coaching tenures. “That's really what you're trying to teach them, is, how you win. I think as a North American player, your room is full of winning — everyone knows how to win, it's just whether or not you do it on the right date. These other countries are learning how to win, how you make it a habit.

“I was happy to be their confidence piece, because I believed in both groups so immensely,” she continues. “And if they were unsure, ‘Just look at me — I'm still confident in us.'”  

MacLeod brings that same attitude to the rink every day in Ottawa, where she has once again relished the opportunity to learn and grow with a new group. 

“I think there's still a lot of learning happening, for me individually and for us collectively, but I think that's the joy of this league,” she says. “It's a high-octane league. It's highly, highly competitive. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. So, you're put to the challenge every day — are you doing enough? Are we prepared enough? Are we executing what we've prepared ourselves on? The evaluation is constant, because every game is so, so competitive.”

Asked where that treasured Judy Diduck hockey card is now, MacLeod smiles. "It's still in my childhood bedroom at my folks' place in Calgary,” she says. “That's a keeper for life." 

The idea behind Diduck’s message, to work hard and always have a goal in mind, stays with her wherever she goes. 

“It's a little bit crazy to me when I actually pause and I think about it,” she says, allowing that rare moment of reflection to last just a bit longer. “I definitely, definitely love the game of hockey and I love trying to grow my own approach to it and learn new ways and look at things differently. And every opportunity has allowed me to do that and challenged me to do that. And I'm grateful for it.”