Why PWHL prospect Claire Thompson is putting medical school on hold to return to hockey

Claire Thompson sat out the first-ever season of the PWHL. She refused to miss out on the second.

Before the PWHL launched in January 2024, Thompson was balancing hockey and medical school. In her first year at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, she studied full-time while playing for Team Canada and in exhibition events with the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, the precursor to the league.

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She even received a compassionate waiver exemption to be drafted to the New York franchise. But Year 2 of medical school at NYU is full-steam into clerkships — working in a hospital or clinic assisting in patient care — which meant she’d only be available to a team on weekends or when her schedule permitted. Meanwhile, the PWHL requires players to be available for all team activities in order to be signed to a full-time player contract.

“It was never my intention to take a full year off playing hockey games,” Thompson told The Athletic. “But it proved not possible to do both.”

Forced to make a choice between full-time medical school and being a professional hockey player, Thompson chose hockey. In April, she officially announced her comeback when she declared for the 2024 PWHL Draft. She will take time off from medical school with an eye toward the 2026 Milan Olympics.

“I feel like I’m in my prime for hockey and I have my whole life to be a physician,” Thompson explained. “It just seemed like the right decision to put a pause on med school, for a short time, while I go back and play for a few more years.”

Thompson is ranked fourth overall in The Athletic’s prospect ranking and is the top-rated defender. A dynamic offensive defender — and Olympic record-holder for points by a defender in a single tournament (13) — Thompson is a lock to be selected in the first round of the draft on Monday, June 10.

“Picking up Claire would be a huge win for any team,” said Sarah Fillier, the presumed first-overall pick, who played with Thompson at Princeton and on Team Canada. “Nobody in the PWHL or international hockey plays like her.”

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Thompson was supposed to be on New York’s reserve list for the 2024 season but ran into visa complications — she was on a student visa — and wasn’t able to officially sign a contract with the team. That put a real wrench into Thompson’s…