The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Tessa Bonhomme on Canada's Loss to the United States, the Future of Women's Hockey, and more

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Tess Bonhomme joins for an in-depth look at the women’s side of the bracket, including a full breakdown of the United States’ dominant win, what it means for the balance of power, and how the Power Pool format is shaping the road to gold. Tess dives into tactical adjustments, standout performers, and the continued growth of the women’s game on the global stage — from development pipelines to increased parity across nations.All that and more on today’s episode of The Sheet.#TheSheet #MilanGames #Hockey #TeamCanada #TeamUSA #WomensHockey #MensHockey #OlympicHockey #BrianBurke #TessBonhommeReach 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.

Okay, so I mentioned it off the top, just like the complete domination yesterday by the United States over Team Canada 5. Bagel is the final score. And getting there, if you're a Canadian hockey fan, left you perplexed, disappointed, depressed, not just maybe for the game, but to get ahead of ourselves. And I know there was no Marie-Philippe plan in the game, but maybe like questioning the future of that program. And here to maybe perhaps comfort Canadians is someone that won a gold medal for Canada. She is at one half of the excellent Jaxon Jail's podcast along with Julia Torcherry. She is Tessa Bonham and she joins me now. Tessa, first of all, how are you today?

And I understand that while we're watching a hockey game yesterday, Canada elected a new prime minister. You got me there, huh? I'm doing good. How are you? Good to see you again. Yeah, good to see. Good to see you too. I haven't seen you since Ottawa last year. It's good to see. I mean, I, you live in my ears. Every week. You and Julia. So I appreciate that.

And listening to you to break it down after the game yesterday, I was like, holy smokes. And I'm watching the game and like you, I'm waiting for something, some kind of pushback from Canada. No Marie-Philippe Poulin in the game. We all understand that. But with all due respect to the clutchiest player that ever clutched, I'm not sure that she could have individually pushed back hard enough.

to make the score respectable. That was just a title way from the United States. Yeah, and that was the exact game that we expected from them, right? That's the game they've been showing us, I don't know, since the beginning of the rivalry series. I think what everybody needs to understand is we had Haley Skorupa on our podcast, and she mentioned she was like, everybody's ripping on the Canadians who are being too old and too slow.

And, you know, at the last world championship, the final went into overtime. And so maybe they're listening to that narrative a little bit too much, but in my opinion, something has changed, obviously, since that World Championship final. The Americans, yes. Are they an amazingly good team? Correct. They are.

Are player for player? Do I think they're better? Yeah, I do. Skill-wise, I do. But I do put a lot of stock in experience and veteran leadership. And I do think we have a lot of stud hockey talent on the Canadian side as well. You look at Darry Watts. You look at Sarah Philly.

like these players should be popping off, quite frankly. My concern comes from the approach. And as a coach, if you're going into these games, right? And obviously the systems or whatever tactics you set up clearly aren't working. Or maybe your players can't deliver on them. Maybe it's a time for a little bit of a shakeup. And I don't mean changing your lines because that doesn't change anything. It's the approach.

And the way I was taught to play and the way I break down, and I like to see it played is if there's a very, in the way I like to play as well, is if there's a very talented player out there who's a threat. So like, for instance, Connor McDavid, you never want that guy building up speed through the neutral zone, right? You don't want to just let him enter your zone. That's a freaking nightmare for everybody. Stacks, stack, stack all through the neutral zone. Right?

You don't want that happening. So you saw in the Canadian game, their studs like, there was a face off play on the first goal with Caroline Harvey, where she walked right down Broadway. And like, yeah, sure. You can say, oh, the players are in shot lane. Sure, they are. But have you ever watched Caroline Harvey play? They've played against her plenty in the rivalry series.

She's never shooting in whatever shot lane she has the puck. She constantly changed the angle. But why was she allowed to walk from, quite frankly, the hash marks, back up to the tops of the circles near the blue line and right back down the middle of the ice? In what level of play is this, should this be allowed to happen from one of their star players? Yeah. He's got a lethal shot. So my opinion was there was too much respect there.

There was too much time and space for their great players. You saw Lila Edwards walk in too on that fifth goal. It was like, what's happening here? And then there was the, you mentioned it, the Abby Murphy effect, where as a former player, you're screaming at the TV because it's like, ladies, forget her. Forget it. Like, the hard part about her is she's in your ear, living rent free in your head,

and she can play. Like, my dad was like, who does she play like? I'm like, Brad Marchand just more talented. Yes. And I was like, she almost puts Brad Marchand to shame a little bit. Well, you know what you know. Dude, I'm telling you, that's smile. Like, I'm watching this.

And she's, she's popping up. She's got to get this. There's another Canadian player going to the box and she's got that smile. I know. I'm glad you got me to Abby Murphy here because, I mean, listen, she came out just an absolute star in that game yesterday. Drew four penalties, three assists all over the ice. What for, for, for, I want to get to. Canadian corrections.

But first, a quick thought on, like, what should everybody know about Abby Murphy? We've all seen the highlights. Everyone's seen the clips. But, like, this is an elite level player that everyone's going to have to get to know really, really fast because she's going to be around a long time. Even if you don't want to get to know her, you're going to get to know her. That's Abby Murphy. Sorry, yeah.

It's a human highlight reel. She's bound to be one of the stars in the PWHL, if not the star, when she just joins. And I think that there is one part of her game and Cassie Campbell-Paskell did call her out on it. And the players do as well that she dives to take these calls. But when we were training for the Olympics and when we were training at a high level, it was always control what you can control. The rest doesn't matter. So like if you're going to get a call on Abby Murphy, you know she's going to flop or whatever, then don't play her that way. Play her a different way. Or let her take the flop and kill the penalty, right? My thing is, is everybody keeps talking about the PWHL and the

upcoming draft this June. And everyone's like, oh, there's so many players that could go first overall. In my head, I'm like, no, there's only one because I'm not knocking any other player. But if you choose anybody except Abby Murphy, you're choosing to play against her. And if you talk to anyone who has played with or against her or both, they will tell you, you always want to be on Abby Murphy's team. Abby Murphy's team, always. So she's bound to be the number one overall draft pick, in my opinion. It's a no-douder in my brain because I do not ever want to play against that player

for more reasons than just the way she can get in players' heads and how physical she is, but how incredibly talented of a hockey player she is. Like, it is gross. I said it on our podcast. Like, is this even fair anymore? Well, here's the thing about it, too. Like I looked at that and I really try not to take female players and compare them to male players. I really don't like doing that.

I want to make one quick exception and just to prove a point. So with Connor McDavid, so with Connor McDavid, he was the first group that grew up with the quote unquote new rules. Right? Coming out of the lockout of 405, everybody had a lot of. relearn how to play the game, right? Everyone had to break old habits and relearn the game. McDavid's group just grew up with that rules package. That was just hockey to them. So I watch Abby Murphy and I say a couple of things. One, this is because of the exponential growth in girls slash women's hockey. This is just what the new hot house of women's hockey is producing.

And this is what that next wave of athlete does. Now, she's the best. at it right now, but much like I always say, there's going to be another Connor McDavid. He was just the first of the bunch to break out. Right now, we look at Abby and Murphy go, how can anyone be better? There will be. Like, there will be more. And I'm sure, Tessa, you've seen them. Like, oh, man, this one, like, you watch them like 14, 15 years like, well, this one's going to be a star. This one's going to be. But like, this is that next wave of elite level player, true or false. The thing with her, true, the thing with her is she checks every box.

So she's not just this offensive threat. She plays great defense. She's a fantastic skater. She got a hell of a shot and she can make plays. Where on the ice is she not a threat? She's a threat on the bench because she's in your ear. Like Abby Murphy is never not a threat, ever. I can't think of somebody that is like that.

I can't think of somebody else that I, you know what? The Lamaroo twins back when I played were probably somebody like that, but they didn't talk a lot out there. Yeah. They were just really, you know, tough, dirty players that played hard and were incredibly skilled. Abby Murphy is, has the mouth with it. You know what I mean? And she doesn't just talk to talk and skate away.

Like, she walks the walk. Like, what is the comeback? You don't have one, right? I don't know. She's going to be a joy to watch. I'm so pumped for her to enter the league. She's the type of player. And I'm Canadian.

Listen, I asked her to sign a stick for me last year. I was just like, I know you're going to be a stick for me. I'm sorry. Get in now. Get in now. I know. I'm not handing her my Canadian passport, I promise. But she's a type of player that you love to hate.

And you love to love because you cannot deny that type of talent. You just can't. So I'm listening to your podcast this morning from the post game. And one of the things you brought up I thought was really interesting, you talked about correctable mistakes. Because I came away from that game going like, oh, man, this does not look good. And then I hear Tesla, but I'm saying, these things are correctable. Meanwhile, in my little brain, and of course, I had never played at the elite level that you did, and I have no gold medals.

I just say things on podcasts like, that's offside, and that's going to be icing, and we'll be right back. But when Tessa Badam says, these things are correctable, I say to myself, okay, one, how, and two, that gives me comfort as a Canadian hockey fan. Yeah. So what's correctable here? What's correctable is the effort, first of all, because I don't think we saw it from anybody, quite frankly. Laura Stacey had a spark at some point. Sarah Filia did for a minute. But the best thing that I think came out of that game,

and if anything you're going to build off of for the Canadians, is the Americans have yet to see your best game, even a good game that you've played this year. So they don't even know what you have on your bench. They don't even know what the best Canadian hockey game is. All they know is what they can put out there and how horribly you guys are capable of playing. That's it.

And the correctable parts that we talked about was you know, on that, well, first the Harvey goal, okay, you let her walk right down Broadway. Don't do that. Stick on puck always. Pressure up by the blue line. You're constantly pressuring in the D zone is one thing that I would absolutely do is you're pressuring everywhere. Everyone's going. You want fun on offense. You got to work five times as hard on defense. And that's it. You take away the time and space and you play physical against all those tough players. They don't have as much time to, one, get a wicked shot off or two, make a play. The second goal with Murphy

that did that amazing backhand feed from the corner over to Bilka which knocked me off my chair and was like oh my gosh what's happening watching that play she shoulder checked twice it was a miss pass on her part the puck went into the Canadian corner and she looked over her shoulder twice and there's two American players in front of the net that were driving

and two Canadian defenders being very hyper Murphy focused probably wanted to lay a hit on her both followed her to the corner There was no communication from Debian. There was no communication on either D. And where were the back checkers? Everyone was just watching. So it's like, yeah, she made a fantastic play,

but like the Canadians essentially were just like us. They were viewers. They were sitting there watching and joining the game. Bought a ticket. Watching the highlight rail. I don't want to be on a highlight reel like that. No thanks. I quite frankly, I love watching great hockey plays,

but against the Canadians, I would prefer not. On the, well, the third goal by Sims, to me that was goal. goaltender interference. I'm sorry. I obviously don't know what goaltender interference is, but to me that is this, that's it. Can we pause on that for one second? Because the rule that I follow. And this is what official after official has told me. Okay. That you're allowed, first of all, you're allowed to chase a puck into the crease. Correct. But if you go into the crease, not chasing a puck,

here's the simple, sing-along rule that Jeffie has always followed. If you're in the blue, that's on you. If you go into the blue and you're not chasing a puck and you just think of it in terms, as one manager told me, think about it in terms of liability. If you just go in there and nudge, wink at, brush up against a goaltender trying to make a save, your liability is sky high and that thing is coming back. Having said that, the puck was there. I thought that was, I still do think that that was going to come back.

Did she push the puck in or did she push the pad in? The only reason why, the only reason why I was like, you're allowed to battle. 100%. The only reason why I was like, oh, that's maybe why they let it in was because she did hit the puck first. It did hit Debian's pad and then she shoved the pad in where the puck had momentum. So I was like, I don't know. Are you allowed to move a goalie's pad, shove it into the net? I don't know.

I clearly don't know goal tenter interference. Regardless, three nothing goal, you lost a battle in front. the what was the other goal leila edwards i said walked right down broadway oh and then the second and then the other bilka on there was it was a three on two uh no it was murphy's goal three on two here or maybe a murphy fed bilka i can't remember regardless this goal it was a three on two they were entering the zone on the canadian defense and there were two Canadian players back checking both stopped skating at the blue line and just looked and it was like this is still a three on two guys And like I said it on my podcast.

My dad taught me this is you don't hold someone's hand. And to me that was handholding. And I've never held an American's hand on the ice like that where it's like you don't just stand next to them nicely and say hello. Like you lay wood on them. Now it's graphite or whatever the heck the sticks are made of. But you lay wood on them. You let them know you're there and you take their space.

And there was none of that. It was just the lack of effort. The heart was missing. So to me, all of these things are fixable. It's just a matter of like, hey, ladies, how bad do you actually want this? Are you just happy to be here? If so, then you know what? Let's get Pump 5-0-0.

We might not even make the finals. You got a tough game against Finland on Thursday. You play a sour hockey game like that against Finland. Watch out. Look what happened in 2019. Who was injured then too? We ended up walking home with a bronze medal. I don't want that.

Not at an Olympic Games. No way. The other, and before he came on, Brian Burke and I were talking about this a little bit. He cited one by Natalie Spooner, but the amount of off sides. And when I always go back to Wayne Gretzky would always say, offside is the most selfish play in hockey. That is the most selfish play of the offside. And it was, I know Laura Stacey gets like ribbed a lot about off sides and all that.

But like, there were a lot of off sides in that game. So, yeah, there's two people that are responsible. responsible for offsides. Yeah. Shoot. So the puck carrier. My thing is like, don't dick around at the blue line. Get it in.

Like, what's the difference? A foot and a half. Just get it over the line and cut across if you want. But at least you're in. Your players can come with speed. Right? You know they're all going. So get it over the line so they can go.

Right? Sometimes you can't, obviously, because it's stepping up on you. But then in that case, chip it into space. Let the ladies fly. Yeah. It was tough too to walk. I felt like the Canadians, when they had the puck, they were scared.

I don't know if you got that at all. Well, but the thing is, I thought that that sort of bled into the off sides. Like there was like the U. you saw this test. Like the United States grabbed Canada by the ankle and dragged them into deep water and said, we're going to swim here. Yeah. How long can you swim here with us?

And I look at like speed like that. And then I say to myself like all the off sides, Canada's playing at a pace that they're not comfortable playing at. No. So how do you defend it? How do you counter? It's okay to not be able to play your style of game or change your style of game so you do play it to shut them down. You look at Switzerland, you look at Finland, you look at Czechia.

They play Canada and USA way different than they play each other. Yep. Why? Because the level of play is elevated. It is hard for them to compete at that level in the game that they want to produce. They're not there yet. And that is okay. Because this is a one game tournament, really, for the Canadians.

they're taking it down to one game, let's say, if they even get there. Okay? So, for Czechia, Finland, Switzerland, they're clog in the middle, right? When you're coming through, they keep things tight. Your shots, it's incredibly hard to get things through. They play a certain way. And then when they face another team, they have a different game plan. Why can't that be the same for Canada?

And I'm not saying this team isn't good. This is a very talented Canadian hockey team. I love all of these players that are on the team. I just think that, okay, we can't play the way we think we should play against this team, unfortunately. They're just a little bit too good. And that's just respect. That's not handing them a gold medal. That's just understanding the game.

All right, so how are we countering this? How do you counter this? And then play tight D, play the way I say in the D zone and wait for your breaks and you have to capitalize. Because quite frankly, once you get past all of this, you got Aaron Frankel to deal with in that. That's it. Which is just like not fun. Right? Here you go.

It's like you get to the big boss, right? You get to the big boss. At the end. Oh, geez. Now this. Now I got to deal with Frank. Oh, that's wonderful. Well, here's what I wonder about now in this game against Finland.

So if I'm reading you correctly here, that essentially what Canada needs to do is ugly up this game and try to make this like a two to one game, boring hockey. We're not just exchanging chances. So here becomes the question. Do you play that way against Finland? No. My main concern. Finland right now is where's the spark? If you want to play in any of the elimination games moving forward, show me.

You can play wide open hockey right now, but at practices and everything they're doing leading up to the U.S., you're focusing on that new system that you're going to introduce or the new way you want to play. Because unfortunately, I don't think Finland's going to be able to play the open-door run-and-gun hockey that the U.S. plays at that pace. So that's not their style. So I think ladies, another life, if you will,

get out there, show me who's got the spark in heart because unfortunately I didn't see it in that last game at all. One of the things that we've read over the last 24 hours, a lot of young legs on that U.S. side, we saw it. And we talked about Abby Murphy plenty. And I think a lot of people know about Chloe Primarano, right? But would, I'm curious about the composition of this team. are there the equivalent players for Canada

that aren't on this team that make up that next wave, much like we're seeing, look, Layla Edwards is just a force out there. We don't have a Lela Edwards. We do have a Chloe Primerano for sure. Layla's a unicorn. She's exceptional.

It's really cool to see. And it's cool to listen to her teammates talk about her, the older ones and the younger ones. my issue with not seeing as many younger, let's say NCAA or U-sport players on the team, is that experience because sure this is a veteran team. How many are sticking around another four years for another Olympics? I don't know. How many are going to be good enough?

I can't say. But it's the Olympic experience that matters. You've got a 23-player roster. Not everybody has to suit up. Not everybody has to play 10-plus minutes a game. So just being in that Olympic atmosphere, experiencing, you know, an opening ceremonies, experiencing what it is to play in front of all of these fans with the Olympic rings around, something you've dreamed them your whole life.

And I'm not saying you get numb to it by any means, but the first is a lot. And I think that experience, you know, depositing into that experience bank, what I call it, where you can take withdrawals whenever you want, I think offering them or gifting them that experience because I don't think Chloe would have hurt this roster very much at all, if anything. Do you know what I mean? Like she would not have, I don't think she would have been a liability. I think this would have been a great growth moment

for a couple of young players, just looking ahead based on, you know, you're looking south of the border saying, okay, they're set for at least the next two Olympics. Where are we? I don't know where we are. That's a great question. I don't know our depth.

I mean, I can watch the under 18s. You know, we lost a tight one to the U.S. there, but coached by two Olympic legends and Vicki Sonahara on the Canadian side and Courtney Kennedy on the American side. And Courtney Kennedy even said, like, that Canadian team, I just didn't want to give them a chance. I didn't want to give them space.

I didn't want to let them breathe out there. And I'm like, that's how you're supposed to play a good team like that, right? You can respect their talent, but don't let them do whatever they want out there. Make them earn it. Let me close with you on. I just want to get a thought or two on Marie-Philippe-Polland. It's tough watching her in the stands. Like, I just like, it sucks.

Like, she's my favorite player. everyone's favorite player, right? Like, yeah. I've always said, like, male, female, animal vegetable, doesn't matter. The clutches player in olive hockey period. It doesn't matter.

I like, there's one story that I always like telling about her and it involves Vincent La Cavillier. So at Team Canada orientation camp, 2009. Yeah. Tessa Bonum. I'm standing there watching,

um, watching the women practice. I'm watching you guys and the guy, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is filing in. They're skating after you. And it's me and Craig Button and Steve Culeas. And we're standing by the glass. And I don't think that Poulin was wearing 29 at that point.

I think she was wearing something else. But anyway, so Vincent La Calleux comes over and says, who's that number, whatever Poulin had on? She was like 19 years old at that point. And so I go through the rap sheet of like, this is who she is and who she's going to be and blah, blah, blah, special, all these different types of things. And he stands her quietly. Like Vincent Lcavillian.

Stans are quietly watching. Pause. That's an FN player and turns around and walked out. I'm just like, game knows game. And like right away, like you could like you knew, right, Tesla, like when you first saw Poulin on the ice. She's like 11 years old. You're like, yeah, this one's going to the Hall of Fame.

This one's going on. Undeniable. When she was like young, you talk to, you know, any of the, we called them the French connection on our team, like Carolyn Willett, Kim, St. Pierre, Shaline Labonte, Sarah Vioncour, all of them, Gina Kingsbury. And they had an eye on poo when she was like 11 coming through. And they were like, it's only a matter of time. Like it's not if.

It's just like when. And in 09, it was blatantly obvious. I don't even know if she knew or understood. I think there was still a lot of bright lights and big name players that, I don't want to say they were intimidating. But like when you grew up idolizing them or looking up to them when you're skating alongside him. I think you kind of lower your own worth, if you will, for whatever reason. And I don't think she truly understood what amazing gift she had. We all knew. And it was like,

you know, you talk her up and she was like, no, no. But one thing you need to learn about poo, and we're all like, yes, yes, is that she is a very emotional person. And that was probably the hardest thing that she had to do was sit in that stance. If I was the coaching staff, what I would have done was I would have handed her a clipboard and a pen. And I would have said, clip any and everything you see, write down the time of the game, write down what you want to talk about your running video session in the morning. That was- Because coaches can ram that stuff down your throat as much as you want.

It becomes numb after a while. But if poo walks in with that clicker, running video, I think everyone's taken a steep being quiet. I love that part of your podcast. You mentioned that too. I'm like, ooh, that's a really, really good. You know, it's funny too. Because when that conversation came up on the pod, my first thought was, I remember talking to

Sidney Crosby about what was it like? Because when is Crosby never been scratched? You know, and he's playing. And it was his first injury. And it's his first time he watched from above. And what he realized is he has more time than he thinks he does. That's like, that's what he said to me. He's like, I have more time than it feels like because I'm forest for the trees.

You're right there. Everything feels so sudden. It wasn't until my first injury where I couldn't play. And I watched the game that I learned how to be. be a better player. Does that resonate? Huge. And that's where all of us armchair GMs are like, why aren't they doing that?

You know, like, I'm saying what I'm saying from the comfort of my couch with the cold one in my hand. You know what I mean? And they're out there living it. So it felt different for those ladies. We only say these things because we expect better and we know they can deliver better. Okay. I want to put that out there.

I'm not ripping on them. telling them like they're brutal and their garbage. That is not the case at all. I think this team has something. They just need to believe it. Kind of like a young 18 year old Poulin who was trying out for the Olympics. But the view from above shows you so much. And I love that Crosby said that and I love that Poulin had that opportunity. I don't love that she's injured by any means. I do expect her to come back when I'm not sure that I was obviously up to their medical staff and whatnot, but and her. But I like that she's. she has that perspective.

And I love that it probably ate her up inside, that there was nothing she could do in that game, except after the game, right? Now what are you doing about it, Poo? Yeah. I do love how you phrase general manager from the sofa. I've always, I've always, Tessa, I've always wanted to live life. We all want to be confident in our lives.

And I want to live the confident life of, you know that guy on the fifth deck at the baseball stadium who's calling balls and strikes. Yeah. I want to live life that confident. Yeah. You know, like 50% right, 50% wrong, but 100% certain. 100% certain, Tessa Bono.

All right. Listen, great stuff. Thanks so much for stopping by. Continued success in Jax and Jolls. It's such a great listen. You and Julia do such a tremendous job. Continued success and we'll check back soon. Appreciate that, Jeff.

Have a going, bud. Thanks for having me. This month.