On New Year’s Eve 2024, Zoe Boyd had what she considers “the best game of her life.” Her team, the Ottawa Charge, won 2-1 against Toronto Sceptres, but that’s not the reason she considers that game a standout. For the first time in her life, her mother was in the stands.

“I don’t think I would be playing professional hockey if it weren’t for [her],” Boyd said. 

When Boyd was around 5 years old, her mom, Tammy, was in a car accident and suffered permanent brain damage. For most of Boyd’s life, she’s lived in an assisted care facility. 

Boyd, who grew up with her family in Caledon East, Ontario, found a sanctuary in playing hockey. She played every chance she could, leveling up from pond hockey to playing on a youth boys team and eventually becoming the captain.

Earlier this month, Boyd began her third season in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which has four teams in the U.S. and four in Canada. After two years with the Ottawa Charge, Boyd was traded to the Boston Fleet following the 2025 season.

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In talking with Boyd — part of the Outsports Power 100’s Rising 50 — one can quickly fall in love with her energy. She brings a calming presence wherever she goes, filled with joy, love and light. She credits “the people in my life, my family, friends, the way I was raised and the adversity I went through” with getting her where she is today as one of the sport’s most exciting rising stars.

For Boyd, her core supporters are her mother, her father, Jim, her best friend, Kristin Della Rovere, and Kristin’s mother, Elizabeth Dimovski. 

When Boyd’s mother had her accident, Dimovski stepped in as caretaker for the young Boyd. They spent — and still spend — plenty of time together, and Dimovski refers to Boyd as one of her children. Just as important as it was for Boyd to have a mother figure in Dimovski, she also provided a tether to her mother. 

“She wanted to make sure that I knew what a good person my mom was,” Boyd said. “A lot of times people find it too painful to talk about the past, or who she was, but for me, I really needed that. I needed to know what she was like, and Elizabeth was just such a great outlet for that.”

A childhood of hockey in Ontario

Boyd and Della Rovere were inseparable growing up and obsessed with hockey. With support from her family and invaluable youth coaches along the way, Boyd lived and breathed the sport. 

In 2018 Boyd was able to play for Team Canada’s U18 team, which won a bronze medal at the World U18 Championships. 

Boyd admits she never imagined that playing pro hockey could be a reality. It was the encouragement of her support system that got her to play college hockey at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

Perhaps just as impactful as the hockey itself, Boyd came out during her freshman year, crediting her teammates in helping her do so. 

“I had seven gay teammates on my team, and yeah, they honestly were the reason I came out,” Boyd said. “They were just like, ‘Are you gay or what?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know,’ but they made me feel like it was OK to figure it out. And then once I did, I knew there was no going back.”

Boyd had a successful career at Quinnipiac. In her junior year she set career highs in assists and blocked 46 shots on her way to ECAC Third Team All-League honors, and she was co-captain of the Bobcats her senior year. Boyd even got to play against Della Rovere when Quinnipiac beat Harvard at the Frozen Fenway 2023 game. 

After graduating in 2023, it was time to move to the big leagues. 

From youth boys teams to the PWHL

In the few years since her graduation, Boyd, currently a defender for the Boston Fleet, has had quite the journey around the pro hockey system.

She signed with the Boston Pride in the Professional Hockey Federation on May 22, 2023, and then saw the league fold on June 29. She was uncertain if she would play professional hockey.

Thankfully, just two months later, she heard her name called in the ninth round of the PWHL’s inaugural draft. Selected 53rd overall by PWHL Ottawa, Boyd had a special bonus on her newfound team — Della Rovere was also headed to the Charge.

Boyd goes from Ottawa to Boston

Boyd would go on to play two seasons with the Charge, including a playoff run in her second season. It was also during this time that she started her own podcast, “No Straight Answers with Zoe Boyd.” The show features Boyd and a rotating carousel of hockey celebrities, talking on —- you guessed — mostly gay things. Like Boyd, the show is a joy. 

This season, Boyd finds herself in Boston, being traded to the Fleet before the 2025 season. Having played college hockey not too far from Boston, she’s quickly settling into her new hometown, and her third PWHL season. 

“It’s a great, great city, great people, great hockey,” she said.

It’s hard not to see a bright future for the Canadian defender. With her community, family and friends alongside, she has proven time and time again that with good people in your corner, anything is possible.

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