The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Erin Ambrose on Preparing for an olympic Year

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

PWHL star Erin Ambrose stops by to talk about the emotional highs and lows of the PWHL expansion draft, why she’s staying in Montreal, how she’s preparing for another PWHL season, and the excitement of heading into another Olympic year.#TheSheet #DailyFaceoff #JeffMarek #GregWyshynski #ESPN #OttawaSenators #LeBretonFlats #PWHL #ErinAmbrose #Hockey #WomensHockey #Olympics #HockeyNews #SportsBetting #GamblingInSportsShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼 Simply Spiked: https://www.simplyspiked.ca/en-CAReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. acast.com. This episode of The Sheet is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Role Sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose, maybe it's a little too flimsy. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one role that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infused pre-roll sale today at OCS.ca and participating retailers. She is the one and only Aaron Ambrose and she joins us now on the sheet.

Aaron, how are you? And I want to get to that CCM line here in a couple of seconds. But how are you, Ambrose? I'm doing well. I'm a little unsure how to feel about the fact that the tats are out today. The tats are out in full effect. Okay, so here's the thing. So I got the left sleeve done pre-COVID.

And what I realized, Aaron, I'm soft now. No. So here's my thing. And I got to fill this out and I got to do some other stuff too. But once upon a time, and you've got some ink, too. You know, it's like, so once upon a time, like my back piece was a six and a half hour sit, did it all in one go. No problem. All good.

But now that I'm a little bit older, it's like I have like, after three hours, things get really spicy. That's fair. I keep putting off going back to like finish my right arm and do all various other things that I want to get down. And it's going to keep drawing on myself until I'm at the crematorium. but I'm soft now, Ambrose. All but my Olympic tattoo were done in less than 30 minutes, so I can't really talk too much. My sister and I actually just got one done together last week.

You did? What did you guys get? Are you able to say sometimes they're very personal? Yeah. So just a leaf with the heart in it. I have the necklace chain. And my sister actually gave it to me before going to Beijing. Yeah.

Seeing as they couldn't come. so she said that she was always going to be with me. And we finally, three years later, got the tattoo that she always talked about. So, Corey's going to get addicted now. Wrist is spicy. It wasn't too bad. I had one there already.

So I just kind of tied it on to the end. So you know what the worst place was for me? And I've got like back lay. See, I'm too soft. I haven't done ribs. I've only heard the horror stories. For me, it was right in here. That's fair.

Right in there. Right there. Oh, that one was an absolute killer. Everything else, like collarbone, yeah, cool, no problem. Back spine was a little bit, eh. But, oh, man, right in here. Oh, screaming for Mommy. Hey, who's the most, we're going from...

Who's the most heavily inked person in the PWHL? Who's got the heaviest think? Uh, I don't know. I guess you wouldn't know every room, I guess, but... No, we've got bits and pieces. Sandra Abstrider has a bit of a sleeve on our team. from Montreal. Like, I have a lot.

I don't know how many other people. I know there's people with sleeves, but I can't put them together right now. I can't think of them. It's been too long since I've seen everybody. When you see the, and this used to be, I'm going to offend like someone in the audience now.

I know it. Maybe I should just shut up, but here I go. The dudes that have the Tasmanian devil with the hockey stick. Is that the, Is that the equivalent of like the barbed wire around the arm? We went from WWE talk to taps now.

I know. Here we go. It's summer, hey, summer pods. But you've been busy. Like, you've been busy and now you're off the camp, getting ready for Italy. Right hand shot the fenceman. Always need those. Right hand shot the fenceman.

Let's go, Ambrose. Tell us about your time with the Oilers of summer. Let's start there. Oh, it's crazy that that was like a long time ago. Like, that was kind of the kickoff to summer. How to come about? First of all, how to come about? So, big shout out to Tanya Kenny. Tanya is head of hockey ops there in Edmonton and used to work for Hockey Canada.

I mean, she was there in Beijing. I don't know how long she was with the program for and then moved on with the Oilers and has done a phenomenal job there in their hockey ops and just kind of got in contact with her and they were looking for some female coaches. and she didn't really think that I was still pursuing coaching, but obviously such a great opportunity that I didn't want to kind of turn it down. So it was surreal, meeting the development staff, meeting the Bakersfield staff.

And the guys were great. There was a lot of young guys, like Tommy Lafranier, their third round pick from this year, young guy, but like so just open to everything. And not that you can pick favorites, but Josh Samanski played for Germany at the World Championship. And Josh was like, he was giving me a hard time, but he was great. And I just like, those two guys really stuck out, obviously O'Reilly skill-wise.

And then a couple of days later, I got flipped. Yep. So just a really cool thing to be around that organization. And we've got a, we've got some opportunities, hopefully to, I mean, I mean, the PW went there last year, and I know how great it was for the girls there. So hoping that I get some more games. Pause that for a second. And first of all, Sam Raleigh is going to be really good, for those who know.

He plays London Knights, to Aaron's point. Really good play. He's going to be like a really good two-way player in the NHL for Tampa or wherever he ends up for a long time. Yeah. Like what, like, what pop for you about Samarale? Sam Raleigh? He kind of, and this could be like a big comparison, but kind of reminded me a lot of like a Jamie Ben,

and I haven't watched him play a ton, so I don't know how big physicality-wise he is, but he was throwing his body around a little bit for a development camp, and there wasn't a lot of game situations, but he had that, like, soft touch for being a big guy. Yeah. And you kind of think of like Ben does have those soft hands, and you look at his Art Ross winning year, like the guy can score, he could score.

Just so to see him kind of, he's got that it factor. And then obviously winning caliber coming from the London Knights organization. Okay, walk us through. Like the summer, I got an Olympic year is always engine him because every time we talk to anybody, it's like, oh, it's an Olympic year,

Olympia and it sort of changes your entire life. Like, no one goes to the Olympics casually. Like, oh, yeah, I guess I'm going to the Olympics. Like, your whole life sort of changes and revolves around it. And I know you're going to give me the yearbook answer about having to make the team still. I get that. But let's get past that. Walk us through an Olympic year.

I guess they're all different. But as far as, like, preparing yourself for an Olympic year, and I'm going to phrase it this way. How selfish do you have to be? to make sure that you're prepared for something like the Olympics. Whether it's like, no, I can't do that. Like you say no a lot more because you have other things you have to do because you have that responsibility to your teammates and to your team and to your coaches and to your teammates

and to your country, no pressure. You have to say no to a lot of things and a lot of people as well. Like how much has your life changed in an Olympic year? Well, I think it's a little bit hard to say right now because this year looks so different. than 2022 did. And 2022 also looked so different than 2018 did when I didn't make the team. So I've had like three very different experiences or will have three different experiences.

But like you talked about like how busy I've been this summer. I really haven't been that busy. Like I've been in Montreal almost full time. Like I haven't missed much here. And I guess more than anything, it's just kind of making sure that I do what I need to do right now in preparation for our first training block. So we've got our three training blocks, two weeks on, two weeks off from now until early October,

which I believe leads us into our first rivalry series against U.S. And this year is just so much different because the past two years that I've been involved, it's move out to Calgary for the live six months and get ready to go. Like as of this time in 2022, we were already moved out into Calgary. I guess we had worlds then. Um, even Beijing or Pyong Chang, we were already moved out, um, beginning of August and started our training, um, which was a centralization where we went in the, in, in 2018, it was in the, I guess there would be U18 league, the guys league there. And then, um, went in the junior, in the AJ, uh, in

2022 leading up to the Olympics in Beijing. So very different this year, but very excited for kind of almost little touch points and like mini training camps every couple of weeks. And that will get us ready to go into our PW season, which is also really exciting. And this is a season that, listen, the last time we spoke here together on the show, we were all wondering about expansion draft. And you were quite vocal about not just your love of the organization, but your love of the city and how much it meant to you. I think the line that really got a lot of people was, I'm going to put words in your mouth here, correct them for me.

You know, I came to Montreal broken and Montreal did a good job of healing. There's a, I know like anyone that knows you know that there's a real emotional attachment to Montreal. To me, it's the best city in the country. I'm probably sure you feel like at least it's one of the top cities in the country. How stressful was that day? And once you realized that you weren't going to go and you were finally able to exhale, what was it like? it was very stressful it was just like a lot of different emotions that i don't think i was expecting to feel um leading up to it what was going to happen you run through scenarios and um it's just tough

because you have a situation where you have to protect yourself as an athlete but you also like i i love montreal i want to be here and there was just so many different things to kind of juggle up and down and I mean, I'm thrilled and beyond excited with the way it worked out and then to also have the free agency go the way that it has for our team makes it even more exciting. Like I would have been excited to be here in Montreal no matter what. But then to see Danielle do what she's done in free agency and see the people that want to come to Montreal

and be a part of the victoire makes it even better. This episode of The Sheet is sponsored by the OCS Summer Programme. pre-roll sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose, maybe it's a little too flimsy. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one role that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infused pre-roll sale today at OCS.ca and participating retailers. inspire us, to unite us, to give us solace and courage when we need it most, to create important stories, lasting memories, a sense of belonging. Your National Art Center serves as a catalyst

and communities across Canada, empowering artists, inspiring audiences, and bringing us closer together. Learn more at nacc.ca.c.c.c.c.c.c. Create in Canada. Hello, listeners. Meet Lisa. Hey there. Lisa runs an online boutique specializing in sustainable fashion. With ACAST, she found a whole new way to reach eco-conscious shoppers. Yep, I recorded a quick ad targeted listeners interested in fashion and sustainability using ACAST's audience attributes targeting feature. And set my budget. Before I knew it, people all over were hearing about my shop.

Now that's a smart way to grow your business. Hey, Lisa, what's trending right now? Shopping sustainably, and my sales, of course. Start reaching your ideal audience through podcast ads with, Acast. Visit go.acast.com slash advertise to get started. Where are you at right now? Oh, I know.

Hang on a second. Before we get to, before we do more hockey, I want to ask about your CCM pride line. It's so, it's so stunning. Like, really, like, I mean, okay, give us the origin story and walk us through what we should. we should know. The guy gets too many shoutouts whenever I have to talk about it. But Dale Williams

approached me about doing the pride line together. And this year, it was just about doing this pride line even better. We did version one last year. It was good, very much staples. This year was trying to, I think, show the growth of my fashion expertise. I wouldn't call it expertise, but I guess my fashion growth, a little bit more stylish. And I thought that the photo shoot really exemplified that. And it's from what I've been told has been selling even better than last year. So incredibly excited, incredibly happy with how it turned out and incredibly, incredibly thankful to CCM that they wanted to partner with this again.

How involved are you in things like design? Or do you just sort of, are you this at the end just sort of approving or disqualing or disapproving, disapproving of that. A little bit of both. Like last year, my main thing for version one, I was like, need a five panel hat. That is a staple in my wardrobe.

It is a staple in the LGBTQ plus community, especially with lesbians. And this year, I wanted to kind of do something different. Like, always get the baseball cap. And then this year, we went with a bucket hat, which was pretty cool. As for the designs,

we wanted to do a graphic t-shirt. So there was a little bit of picking and choosing on as to what would kind of work there. And other than that, like very much just like, yes, it looks good or no, not so much. They kind of talked to me about what the idea is where they're leaning towards. And then I give the go ahead. You know, one thing that I always like to ask hockey players, I don't think I've ever asked you this. What happens in your head when you see someone wearing your jersey, your number, your name bar? Still hasn't really fully sunk in.

Like what happens in your head? Like, are you like, ooh, you shy about it? Or you like, yeah, right on, pull your shoulders back?

Um, I think I'm starting to pull my shoulders back a little bit more because it's like, yeah, like you always balance. I think we, especially as female hockey players, really struggle with like,

yes, I own that. I'm a good hockey player. I, my jersey should be selling because we want what's best for the team. And that, those things don't have to be mutually exclusive. I think we can want what's best for the team, but also like accept and embrace the skill that you have,

the player that you are, the person that you are. So I think I'm starting to get there a little bit more. And it's pretty cool to see my jersey out in the stand sometimes. I remember the first game that I saw it. I was like, taken aback. I was like, there's no way that's 23 up there. Like I'm always used to, we're always used to seeing poos. But then it was like, whoa.

yeah right like I somebody turned and I saw it too and I was like oh another another poo jersey and then I was like whoa that's a three they must have had a misspera stop it stop it um you mentioned edmonton we just had that conversation and pwhch all stop there I'll be honestly like I didn't think that it was going to be um Edmonton as far as expansion this time around um and maybe it's a little birdie or whatever I very strongly that was believe there was going to be Seattle and Vancouver, and it was. But Edmonton looks like a strong candidate here, like a really strong candidate, and it's in a very important time zone for this league, as this league looks to grow, not just

to be like what, as misnamed as it may be the original six was in the NHL, like this is a league where time zones are very important for, you know, things like TV contracts, for example. How much of the conversation do you guys have around? Edmonton as a potential destination. I think Denver's still very much in the conversation, too. I mean, when we do have conversations, it's amongst us as a group. I think one of the cool things is kind of that after this past takeover to her season was like

talking to all of our national team teammates about like, hey, what did you enjoy? Where did you enjoy most? Like what? And I know Edmonton was a big one for obviously Saratakne, Mashmire, like from being out there, but everybody else was also blown away by it. The support, I think you saw just a huge turnout in Edmonton. And that's something that's pretty special anywhere you go, no matter if it's in Canada or the U.S., when you have a huge turnout,

like you kind of get a little bit more excited that that place could be a possibility for this league. I agree with you. I think that you don't always think about it as an athlete, but like the time zones, the TV deals that could come about are things that are really exciting. And again, we don't really think about it right away. But when some birdie like Jeff Merrick talks about, oh, this would be something that you would have to consider and look at, then you kind of start to think about it. And you're like, yeah, that does make a lot of sense.

And obviously Vancouver and Seattle are going to be great. We were lucky enough to play in both those markets last year. And I'm excited to get to go back. You guys with a test team from Montreal. We had a big swing. So it was hopefully I'll be intrigued to see if we go back to any places again this year. If it's all new places or if we're going to be making some return stops at some of the places that were successful. For sure.

Before he came on, Greg and I were talking about media. Oh, I heard you. Yeah, okay. So here's where I want to take this with you. One of my favorite podcasts is Jax and Jills. I love Julia. I love Tessa. Just sort of wonderful people.

Do you have a thought on? and you have a sort of like an idea of, well, first of all, everybody listens to it. Second of all, your thoughts on the jocks and Jill's podcast. I always like to promote other people's pods wherever I go. And this is one of my favorites, like just dynamic personalities and I'm never not laughing. When I either watch them on clips on Instagram or see them, like I'm never, I'm always, just two people that whenever you see them, you're automatically in a good mood. The real yesterday for the Barbies was phenomenal.

That was hilarious, by the way, the wake-ups and the runny eyes. That was great. I love them. I know as a player you're told not to kind of listen to different things, but with Julia and Tessa. That's no way. Come on. You're told not to. I definitely do.

I'm an avid listener. Everybody does. I always say this. If I told you that there was a program design. just for you doing your job. How many people are going to say, I'm not going to listen to that. Like, stop.

Everybody. And I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I get to find out different things about different teams that maybe I didn't know right away. I think Julian and Tess do a great job. I think it's so good for our fan base to have like one place to really hone in on and get to get all the information that they're given.

I love that they went to two episodes a week last. year um and i just think they continue to build i loved what they did posts games in the playoffs with somebody live after the games um starting to get a little bit more interaction and i think that it's just going to continue to grow for them um but i heard wish when he was talking about like different places different locations don't have the same media availability that true Toronto and montreal has um and i think for us it's it's very similar like you look at like our practices we have five to ten media members almost every practice um and then you have other places that don't have that same reach and um i was just thinking that like similar to what you were

saying with san Jose like i don't know if that's ever the case in other in other ranks like we always have some sort of press conference after but i i do really think that the media outlets and being able to to get stories to get even just sound bites out there is huge for our league and huge for us as players to see our faces, to hear our voices, and get to know us as athletes. Every show is, every show is a clip show now. This is a clip show. Like, it's just like, and I'm sort of late to the dance onics. I've always done like long form stuff that hasn't always been chopped up, specifically

in audio. But like, everything's a clip show. And I think the more that you can be cranking that out, I think the better off you are. Okay, a couple of moments left with you, Ambrose. First of all, when do you leave? I leave on Thursday actually we don't start until the 26 but I leave on Thursday you got a Clarkson alumni wedding to attend to so I'm excited for that on Saturday and excited to see a lot of my classmates and teammates from the past which will be who's going to

wear the lamp who's going to wear the lampshade who's the no comment the one girl the one girl conga line who is it come on no comment because if I said we're not a fast name she would smack me in the face. Let's just hear her name rhymes with Renata fast. Okay, and we'll move on. Do not clip that. That's going out right away. You kidding me?

That's gold in them there, Hills, Ambrose. No, Renato won't be, but I just like to say her name to get her all worked up. Excellent defensemen, too. Listen, you're the best. Wish you all the best for the rest of the summer. We'll talk before next season.

We'll talk plenty, as always. Congratulations on the success. the pride line it looks fantastic and so do you on and off the ice you're a delight to call out to call for you. You have a great rest of your summer and we will chat soon. Thank you sir for the summer.

I said 16 hours last night every day this week every day this month I can't get out my head lifestyle ambitious day to day because you can call right. I went to the dark man. He tried to give me a little medicine. I'm like, no, and that's fine. I'm not against those methods, but I knew. It's me and myself and how this is going to be fixed in my mind. I didn't want a bracket. I turned on the music. I didn't want to break it. I turned on the music. I didn't want to break it. I turned on the music.

This episode of the showtime This episode of the day This episode of the This episode of the sheet is sponsored by the OCS summer pre-roll sale Sometimes when you roll your own joint Things can turn out a little differently than what you expected

Maybe it's a little too loose Maybe it's a little too flimsy There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong But there's one role that's always perfect, the pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infused pre-roll sale today at OCS.ca and participating retailers. Art has power to inspire us, to unite us, to give us solace and courage when we need it most, to create important stories, lasting memories, a sense of belonging. Your National Art Center serves.

as a catalyst and communities across Canada. Empowering artists, inspiring audiences, and bringing us closer together. Learn more at nacc.cai.a slash create in Canada. ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. I'm Jesse Kirkshank, and on my podcast, phone a friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture,

but when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on.

Thank God. Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcast. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. acast.com.