Sitting with her family at Tuesday’s PWHL Draft in Ottawa, Ontario, Casey O’Brien was talking through her most likely landing spots — Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa — when she learned the Sirens had traded up for the third pick.
“Oh, my god,” she thought to herself. “Wait, am I going to New York?”
O’Brien knew there was a good chance. And when the Sirens confirmed her suspicions by picking her a few moments later, she felt a mix of “shock and excitement.”
“I think I blacked out,” O’Brien told reporters Wednesday, overlooking the city from the observation deck atop Rockefeller Center. “We were kind of just sitting there, trying to stay calm, not be too nervous, and then the trade happens.”
Moments after selecting Czech forward Kristyna Kaltounkova first overall, the Sirens traded forward Ella Shelton to Toronto for the Nos. 3 and 27 picks, setting the stage for O’Brien’s selection.
The 5-foot-4 forward out of Wisconsin said she had “great conversations” with Sirens management ahead of the draft, but she had no idea New York would trade up for her.
It was the result she secretly had hoped for all along, because she grew up in SoHo and learned to play hockey at the Chelsea Piers sports complex, which she called “the rink that built me.”
O’Brien would take constant trips to Chelsea Piers, even before she learned to skate, because her older brothers, Jack and Max, played hockey there, and her dad, James, coached the house league team.
“I always wanted to do what they were doing, so they let me hop on the ice with them, and I immediately fell in love with the game,” she said.
She eventually shipped off to Minnesota prep powerhouse Shattuck St. Mary’s in 2017, where she posted 211 points in 122 games over a three-season stretch.
She continued to excel with Wisconsin, winning three national titles in five seasons and earning the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best collegiate player after a terrific senior season.
Now, after eight years of starring on winning teams, she’ll look to help the Sirens develop a winning culture after two seasons at the bottom of the standings.
“We’re not looking at the past at all. None of the players are. I don’t think the management is either,” O’Brien said. “We’re coming in with a blank slate, and we’re ready to get going together.”
The 23-year-old will get to do so with several teammates she knows, including Sarah Fillier, Anne Cherkowski and Makenna Webster, a longtime teammate O’Brien described as her “best friend in the world.”
“I think most of these players I’ve at least shared the ice with at one point or another, and we’re all familiar with each other,” O’Brien said. “And so I think we’re going to all have chemistry right away.”
