Dayle Ross played most of her senior season at SCSU with torn ACL

Dayle Ross had begun doing postseason workouts in the spring with teammates on the St. Cloud State women’s hockey team when she heard something troubling.

“I was a little bit worried because I heard clicking in my knee,” Ross said. “I thought it was something like my patella tendon is torn or there was some cartilage floating around. You never know.

“I reached out to my trainer and asked if I could get an MRI. It showed that it was a torn ACL and didn’t figure it would be that extreme. When I found out, I was going full out with the girls, playing games. I was feeling the best I’ve ever felt. I remember having a conversation with

(SCSU coach) Brian (Idalski)

and saying that I’ve never felt so good after a season and physically strong.”

In short order, she had surgery to repair the damage.

“We got it done within a week,” Ross said. “It was pretty fast. I’m so thankful for the staff and the doctor. If I didn’t get it done, I could have wrecked something else. This was probably the best move I made for me for hockey.

“By graduation, I was still limping and in a brace. I stayed an extra month to work with the physio and (SCSU athletic trainer) Rachel (Nagel) and all the amazing staff in St. Cloud. I can’t thank them enough for helping an old senior out.”

Ross, a 5-foot-6 22-year-old defenseman from Spirit River, Alberta, is in Ottawa and will be on hand at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, for the Professional Women’s Hockey League Draft. Online, you can watch the draft on the PWHL’s

YouTube station.

With Vancouver and Seattle joining as expansion teams, there will be 48 players picked over six rounds. Some draft projections have Ross going as high as the top 30 in the draft.

“At the last second, I saw the Hockey News had me ranked in the top 30 and thought, ‘maybe I should go,'” she said. “I thought that I’d be kicking myself if I don’t go. If I don’t get picked, there’s amazing people that will be there and all these coaches I’ve talked to. There are players that I grew up with or played with that will be there.

“I just want to go there for the experience more than anything.”

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Ross said that her rehabilitation from surgery is ahead of schedule. She has begun jogging and is lifting weights.

“They just don’t want me to turn my knee,” she said. “I can move forward and backward and side-to-side slowly. It’s about the way I move it to protect my ACL that is starting to re-attach. I can run as long as I want, but I can’t sprint yet. It’s a slow process. I’m still getting stronger.”

Ross is known for being an ardent trainer both during and after the season. During the offseason, she is typically on the ice 3-4 times a day with either a skating instructor or giving skating lessons.

She is hoping to be able to get back on the ice by the end of July.

“I’m so used to skating all the time that I’m missing it,” Ross said. “I’m hoping that when I get back to playing hockey, my love for the game will be that much more. I hate that I’m at this point, but I know when I get back, I’ll enjoy it more.”

It sounds like she may be missing coaching youth players as much as she misses working on her own skills.

“I’m hoping to get on the ice as soon as I can because I’m missing working with the kids,” she said.

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While she was playing through her injury, Ross ended up having the best season of her college career. She had 13 assists, 15 points, a career-best 103 shots, 46 blocked shots and led

the Huskies

in plus/minus with a career-best plus-11.

To put that plus/minus number in perspective, her next closest teammates were sophomore forward Sofianna Sundelin, senior defenseman Ella Anick and freshman defenseman Siiri Yrjölä, who were all plus-3.

Keep in mind, Ross was playing on the top defensive pairing, so she was facing most of the top scoring forwards in NCAA Division I every game.

“It’s not like I didn’t play against top lines. I was out there a lot,” Ross said. “I think (Team USA and Minnesota forward) Abbey Murphy didn’t scored on me a single time. I know that’s a good stat to have and I’m thankful for that. I know they don’t look at just stats.”

So after she got injured, how was she able to get on the ice and play?

“After the week we played Wisconsin, we had an off weekend and I took that week off and played fine,” Ross said. “I didn’t have any pain. My knee would just swell after the game sometimes.

“I did the rehab before practice, I would do some extra stuff to get through the season. I didn’t realize that I tore my ACL. My quad was strong enough to cope with the pain and cope that sensibility of my knee shifting. I played the whole season without a brace.”

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Ross’ agent is Nick DiLisi and she said that he has been talking to some PWHL teams as they prepare for the draft.

“He talks with them about who I am as a player and as a person,” she said. “He does the talking … I have no idea how many teams. A couple for sure. If there was none that my agent was talking to, I’d be a little worried. He does all that work for me.

“He’s really helped me with taking phone calls from teams and dealing with all the media stuff. He deals with talking with all the teams, which I’m not good at. So I really appreciate that about him.”

Ross also has an ally in

Idalski, who was named the first head coach of the Vancouver team on Monday, June 23.

“Brian is my little agent as well,” said Ross, who played three seasons for Idalski. “He has so many contacts and knows so many people and knows me personally. If there’s something bad about me, he’ll tell them. If there’s something good about me, he’ll tell them. It’s nice to have him on my side.”

Ross said that she is just hoping that she gets a shot in the PWHL and was happy with how she played last season.

“At the end of the year, I had a decent amount of points and I thought I played really well,” she said. “At the end, you never really know. The media talks about all the players that score a zillion goals and have all the points on the top teams. But there are really good players on other teams that maybe don’t get as many points, but they might get as many points if they were on one of those top teams.”

While the surgery has been a setback to her training, Ross is optimistic about her chances of getting drafted.

“I was really worried about my injury, but that’s just part of the game,” she said. “I’m a good defenseman and I have to believe that I’m good. I have to sell myself a bit.”

Ross is one of three former SCSU players likely to be drafted. The other players are

forward Emma Gentry

and

goalie Sanni Ahola,

who also finished their eligibility.

Ross has earned her degree in exercise science and was a two-time WCHA All-Academic Team pick. In her career, she had 33 assists, 40 points, 252 shots, 92 penalty minutes, was a plus-6 and had 269 blocked shots in 142 games. In 2022-23, Ross set an NCAA record with 104 blocked shots.