PWHL Toronto’s third-round pick in the 2024 draft is the Patty Kazmeier Award-winning forward from Cornell University, Izzy Daniel. She is looking forward to joining the dynamic group of Toronto players this year, and is sure to bring scoring prowess and fierce competitiveness to the lineup. After the draft, The Hockey News' Cee Benweell spoke with Daniel to find out more about her as a player and a person.
Where did you get your love of hockey or your inspiration to play?
It’s kind of an interesting story, actually. I grew up in Minnesota so it’s a hockey hotbed, but no one in my family played hockey, so I wasn’t introduced to it by any of my family members. I was a big soccer player growing up, and we were a skiing family. I was about eight years old and I was at my neighbor’s house across the street and he was getting ready for hockey practice and putting on all of his equipment, and I ran back over to my dad with my brother and said, “I want to play hockey.”
He signed both of us up for the same team, and my brother is three years younger – he signed us up for Mighty Mites at eight which is not where I should’ve been; I was way too old for that, but then it just kind of took off from there. I played soccer throughout my whole life until it was time to choose, and then I would say it was sophomore year of high school that I started focusing on hockey as my main passion.
You’re a little smaller than some of the bigger players we’re seeing now as a trend. Could you describe your style of game?
I’ve never thought I can’t do it because I’m smaller – I don’t even consider myself small, to be honest, I’m 5’5” and even on skates I don’t think I’m getting towered over out there. I’m not going to be bullying people in the corners but I’m definitely not afraid to go in there and battle. I don’t think I’m intimidated by other people’s size.
I think to get around that I’m an extremely smart player, that’s probably my main attribute is that I want to put myself in positions that would be advantageous for someone with my skill set, and that’s not battling in front of the net because I’m probably not going to be able to stand there forever; I’m probably going to get boxed out.
But after high school when I got to college, it was a step up, especially the physicality and the speed, and I wasn’t ready for that level yet. After my freshman year, Covid was kind of a blessing in disguise. We didn’t play that season, so I chose to come home, I took the year off at Cornell and I really worked on myself, especially in the gym and I got a lot stronger and a lot faster, so I think overall it was a good year for me just to focus on my individual game.
Watching you play, your hockey sense as a playmaker is noticeable, and you mentioned Mitch Marner as someone you could see as a similar player. Do you think that’s a good comparison?
Yeah, it’s funny that I’ll be in Toronto too. I don’t know how the Toronto fans are feeling about him these days, I think he gets a bad rap there. I think he’s kind of a magician out there, he can make so many different plays, and he sees the ice so well. But I also just love how he plays the power play, he plays penalty kill, he can kind of do it all, and I look at myself in that way too. I think I have the ability to do both on special teams, and then wherever I am slotted in the lineup I can adapt. Playmaking is probably my best attribute too, so, maybe not as good as him, but I definitely love watching him play.
What is your leadership style like, and with other people, how do you learn from leaders?
I would consider myself someone who is very quiet, or a little more introverted until I get to know and feel comfortable in my surroundings but I think that’s my leadership style too–I lead by example and I want to show the way, rather than tell people how to do it. Why would someone listen to me if I don’t do it myself?
But I also think I garnered respect within the room too during my time at Cornell where when I did speak, it was very meaningful. I didn’t do it a lot of the time but I wanted it to carry a lot of weight. I learned my freshman year at Cornell, we had a tremendous senior class, with tremendous leadership and that culture was instilled in me and I made it my mission to get that back after COVID. I took a lot of pride in that and trying to get our program back to where it was on the national stage, but also just in the room, trying to instil what I had learned into the players who were going to be there after me and pay it forward.
But I would definitely say I’m more of a quiet person and lead by example. I just want to put my head down and do my best. I’m always going to put my best foot forward in all things. I’m extremely competitive, so no matter what I’m going to try to win, so I think that’s also a good quality about me.
Are you familiar with the leadership group, or any of the players in Toronto?
I don’t know any of them personally. Obviously, I got to meet some of them; they were the ones that announced my draft pick which was kind of cool, but in terms of their leadership group, I’ve heard nothing but great things. I have some really good friends from Cornell who play in New York – Jamie Bourbonnais, Micah Zandee-Hart – who both spoke very highly of their Team Canada teammates, and the same with my coach at Cornell, Doug Derraug. He is obviously very familiar with the staff and the players and he also said that you’re going to love it there, it’s a great spot, and that was something that is important to me, the culture and the environment that I’m in,
Like I said earlier, I’m an introvert and it takes me a little bit to be comfortable, so being in an environment like that and the culture is really important to me, and definitely that resonated with me before the draft with Toronto. I had a weird feeling that I would end up there because my values kind of aligned with what I had heard about their team and their staff so I’m really excited.
What is your summer looking like - your training - are you taking a few weeks off?
No, for us, we haven’t been playing hockey since March, our season ended then I went to Worlds camp and then back home so I took time off after camp and then I kind of got back into it more recently. I would say within the past month I started skating again and playing and getting back in the gym, so I’ve definitely been ramping it up. We have another camp in August so I’m trying to ramp it up again until then, and then I'll get back and then head to Toronto in the early fall probably.
It definitely is an adjustment for a college player; the off-season is a lot longer. I'm used to just coming home and having about two months and then I'm back at school in August and training again. So it will definitely be weird not going back to college, and I think that’s when it will hit me that I’m not in college anymore.
I'm definitely doing my best to get ready for training camp and to be playing with the best players in the world and in the best league. So I'm doing whatever I can do to be ready. I'm probably not going to be able to do everything– I'm not going to know what it's like until I'm actually there so that will probably be a feeling-out process but just doing what I can.
Players were surprised by the wear and tear - are you planning or preparing, adding anything into your training to make sure you can handle it all?
Yeah, I think of myself as a diligent person in terms of my habits away from the rink and making sure I’m fuelling my body properly. That’s important to me and as of right now, the college season is a similar length in terms of games played. It is different because we don’t play during the weekdays but it’s similar to how I would feel after the end of the college season. You’re beat up and you have to take days off sometimes and not practice to feel 100%. I’m sure it’s going to be even more heightened in the pros, but I think I’m just going to try to figure it out once I get there.
To watch the full conversation between Benwell and Izzy Daniel, CLICK HERE to watch the Puck Drop Podcast .
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