TORONTO — On Friday morning, before attending a ceremony to receive her Hockey Hall of Fame ring in advance of her induction on Monday, Hayley Wickenheiser was getting in an hour of study as part of her medical training to be an emergency room doctor.
In June, when the Hall’s chairman, Lanny McDonald, called to inform her that she had been elected in her first year of eligibility, Wickenheiser was sitting down for a medical exam at the University of Calgary.
Wickenheiser, widely regarded as the best female hockey player ever, won seven world championships and four Olympic gold medals with Canada, and last year she was hired by the N.H.L.’s Toronto Maple Leafs as assistant director of player development.
But the 41-year-old Wickenheiser has not slowed down, balancing her studies with her responsibilities in the Leafs’ front office while working with junior players in the Western Hockey League.
“I kind of went from playing to med school to working with the Leafs, so it’s kind of all blended,” said Wickenheiser, who is in the second year of a three-year medical studies program. “I just really haven’t had a moment to take a breath since I retired, to be honest.”
In January, at least, she won’t have to travel as far, as she will continue her medical training at a teaching hospital in Toronto.
But her primary job will still be with the Maple Leafs, where she has, by all accounts, earned the respect and attention of the players — and rightfully so, said McDonald, who spent parts of seven seasons with Toronto during his illustrious career.
“If you ever watched how she skates and the power of her stride, and how she played the game both mentally and physically, she has a lot to offer,” McDonald said.
On Monday, Wickenheiser will become the seventh woman inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, joining Angela James, Geraldine Heaney, Danielle Goyette, Jayna Hefford, Cammi Granato and Angela Ruggiero. The other members of this year’s class to be inducted on Monday are the players Guy Carbonneau, Vaclav Nedomansky and Sergei Zubov, and the builders Jim Rutherford and Jerry York.
Since Leafs General Manager Kyle Dubas hired her last year, Wickenheiser has worked with John Tavares on his rehab from a broken finger, doing some skating and skills work. She did the same with forward Zach Hyman and defenseman Travis Dermott.
But Wickenheiser also focuses heavily on the mental side of the game. Though sports psychology is not necessarily her area of expertise, her medical studies have given her a new perspective on how to handle the game mentally.
“The biggest part of being a pro and what separates guys is who can keep your head on, keep it on when things don’t go well,” she said.
She sees some aspects of medical care that could be emphasized by hockey teams, too, such as instilling humanity and empathy, which can be seen as a weakness in professional sports, she said.
“What we need to create is an environment where, if they’re struggling and not doing well emotionally, they can have a place within the organization to feel safe and not lose their career,” she said. “I think a lot of organizations are looking at that now.”
The Leafs certainly have, hiring a wellness consultant and recently bringing on a team psychiatrist. The team also made waves in the male-dominated N.H.L. when it hired Wickenheiser and the amateur scout Noelle Needham in August 2018.
A handful of women have broken into the league: The former figure skating world champion Barbara Underhill has worked with the Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning. In September, the expansion club in Seattle announced that Granato, the captain of the gold-medal-winning United States team at the 1998 Olympics, would become the first female pro scout in the N.H.L. And in 2016, Dawn Braid became the first female full-time N.H.L. coach when she became the Arizona Coyotes’ skating coach.
Wickenheiser’s induction is coming in the wake of plenty of debate about diversity in Canadian hockey. Fierce emotions were stirred by two sets of comments, first from the broadcaster Don Cherry, who was fired for his remarks about what he believed to be the insufficient patriotism of Canadians who weren’t wearing poppies in honor of military personnel. Then the television personality Jessica Allen drew backlash for criticizing hockey culture in Canada, specifically mentioning “white boys” who are “often bullies.” She and her network, CTV, later apologized for the remarks.
Wickenheiser said she struggled with the Cherry firing because she has known him for 20 years and he has been a vocal supporter of the women’s game, even though she said she often shook her head at what he said on his “Coach’s Corner” segments, especially “about head shots and my being in med school. That’s hard to hear.”
But she disagreed with Allen’s take on the lack of diversity in hockey, and went on Twitter to invite Allen to the Wickenheiser World Female Hockey Festival, known as WickFest. This year was the 10th WickFest, which includes tournaments, workshops and clinics.
“Not every boy or girl who plays hockey is a privileged white person,” Wickenheiser said in response to Allen’s remarks. “Yes, hockey is predominantly a white sport and an expensive sport. There’s no doubt about that. I’d love her to come to Calgary, and let’s have a talk about what we’ve done with WickFest. We’ve brought teams from India and China and Mexico and all around the world and worked with marginalized kids.”
Wickenheiser believes hockey talk should focus on what’s good for the game and on the people who do good for the game. “That’s where the future of this game is,” she said. “It’s not with those who try to drag it down.”
Wickenheiser also recognizes that this is an important moment for women’s hockey, after the demise of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League left one pro league in North America: the National Women’s Hockey League, which opened its fifth season on Oct. 5 with five teams and about 100 players.
Wickenheiser has spoken to the N.H.L. commissioner, Gary Bettman, about the splintering of the women’s pro game, and she believes the league will eventually step up with support to “do what’s right for the women’s game.”
“Women’s hockey is at a pivotal moment,” she said. “If the leagues don’t figure it out, it will be a lost moment.”