How the PWHL has changed the way Canada's women's hockey team is selected

Nearly four years ago, as the Canadian women's hockey team worked toward an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, a teenaged Chloe Primerano would record the late-night games at home.

She'd get her family to keep the score a secret, until she could watch it after school.

"I always wanted to go to the Olympics, but seeing that just made me really want to actually get there one day," Primerano said.

Now 18, Primerano is one of 30 players trying to secure a spot on the Olympic team that will go to Italy in February to try to defend gold. She's working to make the team in between her NCAA season at the University of Minnesota. She's in her second college season, after graduating from high school a year early.

The defender with a hockey IQ beyond her years is now living and training with the players she watched just a few years ago. At the team's first training block in Calgary, Primerano lived in a house with with Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey.

The captain smiled when asked about Primerano, who she described as "a great kid." Should Primerano make the team, she'd be the youngest to do it since Poulin in 2010.

"The way she plays just says it all," Poulin said. "She's so skilled at the way she moves the puck, the way she shoots, the way she skates with it. It's very impressive to see. The future is quite bright for her and I'm very excited to see what's ahead."

Living together in rented homes instead of hotels is one way the Canadian team is trying to make the most of an Olympic year with fewer opportunities to get together.

But now, Olympic training must be built around the PWHL season, which begins on Nov. 21 and will pause at the end of January for the Olympics. The Canadians will play only four games together before the