'Immediate bond': Toronto PWHL players building on old, new relationships with common goal

Training camp has served as a chance for Sarah Nurse to reunite with some players and get acquainted with others.

The star Canadian forward has been around fellow national team members, as well as American teammates who have been rivals at the international level, while training with Toronto's team in the Professional Women's Hockey League.

"I think it's great. To be able to play alongside somebody like a Blayre Turnbull — I went to university with her in Wisconsin, but we've been separated for the last five years [with] her being in Calgary," Nurse said after practice last week. "Just seeing her day to day is pretty impressive.

"Obviously, we have players who are the best in the world on this team, so to be able to compete against them every day and then go to battle with them in games is pretty exciting.

"Playing with somebody like Jesse Compher or Kali Flanagan, and those are two players that I've played against, so having a newfound respect for their games that I may not have necessarily seen when they were on the U.S. national team. It's been a pretty cool combination, a pretty cool mix."

The Canadian and U.S. women's programs have a historic rivalry dating to the 1990s, with both dominating the sport at world championships and Olympic Games.

New. day, new week, same passion. <a href="https://t.co/A8hGbRkmSQ">pic.twitter.com/A8hGbRkmSQ</a>

The two sides have also competed in the annual seven-game Rivalry Series, with five Canadians on Toronto competing in this season's edition.

But on the ice in Toronto, players could be seen sharing tips and laughs with one another as the team went through practice.

Forward Natalie Spooner called it "exciting" to play alongside American players the calibre of Compher and Flanagan.