Czechia poised to make a move in women's hockey with Canada's MacLeod

Carla MacLeod spent her July holiday in Maui studying flash cards she'd made of hockey players she was about to coach.

A two-time Olympic gold medallist with Canada's women's hockey team in 2006 and 2010, MacLeod hadn't planned on taking on another coaching gig because she already had one with the University of Calgary Dinos women's team.

But she's behind the bench of Czechia, previously known as the Czech Republic, at the women's world championship in Denmark.

The Czechs went undefeated in their pool of the world's sixth to 10th seeds and take on Finland in Thursday's quarterfinals.

"What makes me most proud is I think we're getting to the point where they believe in themselves," MacLeod told The Canadian Press.

"Results aside, that's something that will impact them not only as a team, but as women moving forward. I think that's the most important piece."

It's not the first international assignment for the 40-year-old Calgarian since the defender retired from the national team in 2010 and entered the coaching ranks.

MacLeod spent three years as an assistant coach for Japan from 2012 to 2014.

Japan both qualified for the Olympic Games in 2014 for the first time since it was the host team in 1998, and gained promotion from the Division 1 world championship to the top tier during MacLeod's tenure.

While MacLeod loved her stint with the Japanese, she hesitated when the Czechs offered her this spring the job of head coach of their women's team.

She knew from her Japanese experience the travel demands an international assignment requires. MacLeod had also just taken over as head coach of the Dinos in 2021.

"There's a lot of people in this scenario I had to make sure I could do right by and I felt the weight of that early,"