From retirement to Olympic training camp: How Daryl Watts found her way back to hockey

Three summers ago, Daryl Watts looked at her phone and felt a pang of envy.

She saw videos of friends on the ice at hockey practice. Meanwhile, Watts, who'd won the coveted Patty Kazmaier Award for the top player in women's college hockey a few years before, was working at a summer internship in commercial real estate in downtown Toronto.

That job in the summer of 2022 was supposed to be the start of a new chapter. Watts didn't see a future or a career in hockey. After her time in college came to an end at the University of Wisconsin, she hung up her skates.

But hockey wouldn't let her go. Watts put her skates back on 10 months after she retired.

"I'm just so grateful and happy that I'm playing hockey because I feel like that's what I was meant to do," Watts said in an interview with CBC Sports. "It's my first love."

Watts is competing for a spot on the Canadian Olympic team, something she's dreamed about since she was a little girl. The 26-year-old was one of 30 players named to Hockey Canada's training camp roster earlier this summer. That will take her to Calgary next week for the team's first training block.

Back in 2010, a 10-year-old Watts was cheering in the stands in Vancouver, her face painted red and a Canadian flag in her arms, as the Canadian women won Olympic gold. It was a family trip, and for a self-described "super fan," the women's hockey final was the most anticipated event.

Now, she has the chance to write her own Olympic story.

"I'm so happy to see her being part of that centralization camp," said Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who Watts cheered for in Vancouver in 2010.

"She has so much talent. You see her from year one to year two, how much she has grown as a person, as a player. She's