For PWHL stars, expansion process serves as a reminder that hockey is a business first

For Sarah Nurse, the shocking trade of former Toronto Sceptres teammate Jocelyne Larocque last New Year's Eve was a bit of a wake-up call.

Larocque is a veteran, shutdown defender who's seen, and won, just about everything. She's the teammate that everyone wants to have.

Her teammates in Toronto thought she was untouchable before she was sent to Ottawa in a four-player trade. It was a reminder that the PWHL is a business first, even if it hasn't always been that way, historically, in women's hockey.

Now, Nurse is moving across the country to Vancouver, where she signed a one-year contract earlier this week, after Toronto left her unprotected ahead of the expansion draft.

As the process unfolded, Nurse found herself having to separate emotions and business. Many of those emotions were tied to the fact that Toronto is home. It's one of the only cities Nurse has ever lived in, and a city where she always dreamed of playing professional hockey.

"Being one of the foundational players that kind of helped build the program [in Toronto], it means so much to me," Nurse said. 

"But at the end of the day, when you think of an opportunity to go to an expansion team and to be able to bring what I bring off of the ice, but to be able to bring the level of play that I also bring on the ice, I think is something really special and something that [Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey] had recognized and identified with me, and something that I really appreciated."

Nurse is one of 10 players who signed with expansion teams in Vancouver or Seattle this week, as both prepare to begin play next season.

By the end of Monday's expansion draft, both new teams will have 12 players each, and all the existing teams will have lost four players each.

So