Three women’s hockey players — Chloe Primerano, Abbey Murphy and Caitlin Kraemer — are participating in the Edmonton Oilers’ development camp this week.
In recent years, women such as Marie-Philip Poulin and Kendall Coyne Schofield have been on the ice during NHL teams’ development camps as guest coaches — Poulin with the Montreal Canadiens, Coyne Schofield with the Chicago Blackhawks. But in this case, this trio of players will be full participants.
Oilers general manager Stan Bowman had the idea to invite elite women’s hockey players to camp after watching the Milan Olympic women’s hockey tournament as an ****** istant general manager with the U.S. men’s team.
“They were putting on a show for everybody,” Bowman told The Athletic. “It was really high-level hockey on display and I was so impressed by it, that’s when it came to me — we should take some of these players and try to bring them to camp.”
Bowman contacted Murphy, Primerano and Kraemer in May asking if they’d like to attend the week-long camp, which began on Monday. Kraemer told reporters in Edmonton on Tuesday she thought the text from Bowman was spam. Primerano also had difficulty believing the invitation.