Another London-raised hockey player joins PWHL in draft picks

A former London hockey player is getting ready to hit the ice in Montreal after getting drafted to the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) Tuesday night.

Defender Nicole Gosling, 23, was the fourth overall pick for the Montreal Victoire during yesterday's 2025 PWHL Draft in Ottawa.

"Obviously I'm super excited. I hear Montreal is a great city and they have a great team, so I'm honestly just really excited to be a part of it and see it for myself first hand," Gosling said.

She's one of three players from the area who are playing for the league. Joining Gosling is her cousin and fellow Londoner Julia Gosling and St. Thomas native Lexie Adzija, who were both drafted to Seattle.

This is Nicole Gosling's latest achievement after becoming a world champion with Team Canada in Utica, N.Y. about a year ago.

The athlete, who most recently played for Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., said she hopes the skills she's built up as a defensive player will lend itself to Montreal's team. 

"I'm definitely a calm, composed type of defenseman, but I believe in my abilities to understand both sides of the puck," Gosling said. "I understand the defensive side very well, so I'm just hoping to be able to have an impact right away."

Gosling's hockey roots go back to her time playing with the London Devilettes Girls Hockey Association.

"The first year we watched her play, she did everything right," said Devilettes head coach Ted Brown, who coached Gosling for four years. "She was very dominant, and she stood out."

Gosling joined the Devilettes when she was only 14, Brown said, which is a year before players are typically allowed to join the association.

"A lot of times when you pick 15 year olds to play on your team, it takes them a while to get used to the physicality and the speed of the game. She fit right in, in all those aspects," Brown said. "That was pretty amazing for a 14-year-old."

Brown said he was not surprised to hear Gosling was drafted by Montreal, and expects she'll get plenty of ice time in her rookie season.

"She's very intelligent. She plays both ends of the ice well," he said. "She can score and she knows exactly when to jump into play and when it's an opportune time for her to make an impact offensively."

Hockey runs in the Gosling family. Fellow Devilettes alumna, Julia Gosling, was drafted from the Toronto Sceptres to Seattle last week. 

The PWHL accomplishment is the latest the cousins will share, as the pair won gold at the U18 Women's World Hockey Championship back when they were teenagers.

"When we all started just getting them on the ice just to have fun, we never would have thought from all these accomplishments that they would get to this level," Nicole's father, Peter Gosling, said. "I'm looking forward to this outstanding achievement for both of them and looking forward to many years of these battles going on."

Gosling said she plans to try new coffee shops, practice her French and engage in the local culture while in Montreal. She looks forward to being part of a hockey league that continues to make a name for itself, she added. 

"It's a new league, so I'm just super excited to be a part of it and watch it grow," she said. "It's still continuing to grow and [it's creating] that passion for young, little girls to believe that they can do this one day."