Every day of that off-season, she shot 400 pucks. Fast-forward a few years and, at 15, the defender known for her impressive offensive upside became the first female skater in history selected by a Canadian Hockey League team. Minutes after the Vancouver Giants made her their final pick in the 2022 WHL draft, Primerano got a congratulatory call from partial owner, crooner Michael Bublé, and that evening she did a live interview with Hockey Night in Canada from her parent’s home office.

Primerano could’ve made that problem go away by switching back to girls’ hockey, but she didn’t consider that, and instead played for the A2 team her first year of atom. “You just continue to work hard and use it as fuel,” she says. “I think it honestly helped me going forward, knowing that not everything is guaranteed.”

Her family belongs to the North Shore Winter Club, where ice time is easily accessible, and Primerano spent even more of her free time there after she was cut from that top atom team. She’d bring her own passing rebounder and run herself through various drills. The work ethic paid off and in her second year of atom she made that A1 team and they went on to win their league championship. A season later, her first in pewee, she again made the A1 team, this one including future first-overall NHL draft pick, Macklin Celebrini.

Cimoroni, who played alongside Primerano for Canada at the last two U18 world championships, says the biggest differentiator between her friend and others their age is Primerano’s vision. “She just sees the game faster. I’ll be back door through five people and she’ll somehow get the puck to me — she’ll make plays that I’m like, ‘How did you even see that?’” Cimoroni says. “And she’s like, ‘I don’t even know.’ But she does, because she saw it.”

Last season was Primerano’s second with Kelowna’s RINK Hockey Academy, and she set a Canadian Sport School Hockey League record for points in a season by a defender, leading her team with 48 in 30 games. “She needed another challenge,” says Fiona, and so Primerano decided to graduate high school a year early and start her NCAA career at 17. It’s a move that’s not uncommon in the men’s game, but it’s rare for women, and Primerano was the first to do it for Minnesota.

“As soon as we found out that, if we could make it work, she would do it, then we made sure that we made room,” says Golden Gophers coach Brad Frost. “The more that we were in conversation about her goals and dreams to play at the Olympics in 2026, it made sense for her to get to a higher level quicker to help improve her abilities and play against players that were bigger, stronger, faster.”

Frost knew about Primerano’s “elite release,” as he calls it, before he began coaching her, and he saw it in Game 1, when she scored on the power play. But the quality that most impresses him, which he discovered this season, is her competitiveness and passion.

“Nobody likes being on the ice more than Chloe,” Frost says, pointing out she also spends hours working on her shot in a designated indoor shooting room at the university, watches hockey on TV every chance she has, emulates the quick moves on the blueline made by Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes, and waxes eloquent about outdoor rinks. “She eats, sleeps and breathes hockey. Her passion is unmatched in that way.”

Sunohara will never forget the first time she was on the ice with Primerano and got a pass from the then-16-year-old during a drill. Sunohara has rheumatoid arthritis and a steel rod in one of her forearms. “I could feel the vibration when I got that pass,” she says, laughing. “I was like, ‘Oh boy, I’ve got to be more ready to absorb her passes.’”

Primerano’s on-ice skills improved over her two years at the U18 level, Sunohara says, but it was in her leadership that the coach noticed the biggest steps. “She really did her best to make everybody around her better, and good hockey players, sometimes [elite players] don’t make the effort to do that,” Sunohara says.

Primerano had a pair of assists as the Golden Gophers beat Colgate in the regional final to make it to the NCAA Frozen Four. There, fourth-ranked Minnesota lost in the semi-final to the eventual champions from Wisconsin. “She was crushed,” Joe says.

“She holds herself very responsible for losses,” Fiona adds.

“We definitely had a lot of belief in our team going into that game, and we knew we could beat them,” Primerano says. “Obviously, it didn’t go that way, but we believed in each other all year.”

“None of us had really seen her practice it before, so we didn’t really know what was in her repertoire,” defender Erin Ambrose says. “And then she pulled that out.”

“Literally, there was a moment of pause — like, holy crap, that was so nice,” Larocque says, with a laugh.

After that beat, Primerano was surrounded by her teammates in a sea of jump-hugs, helmet pats and screams, celebrating the rookie’s first goal for her senior national team, in her debut game.

“Those are some pretty quick hands that created that deception,” says Fast, who leads all PWHL defenders in points. “Those hands are so, so quick. And you see it all over the place, like on the blueline, the way she has the patience and poise and finds ways to get the puck to the net.”

Adds Larocque: “It’s almost like the puck is Velcroed to her stick.”

“She’s such a dynamic player,” says Team Canada’s head coach, Troy Ryan. “She’s acquired, over time, some pretty great passing details, some great habits. On the power play you see it, and it’s something that’s unique and special. I think a lot of times players that are young and skilled can be somewhat one-dimensional. And I just don’t think she is that.”

To date, the senior national team has seen only a small sample size of Primerano in person, just one game and a single training camp this past September, but she’s already managed to impress.

“She does something on our team that nobody else does — just how she walks the blueline, her offensive instincts,” Ambrose says. “Her movement is second to none, I think, in our D group. And I think it’s something that when she gets even more confidence, she’s going to be able to do even more and be even more of a threat.”

A hunger to grow, too. At 36, Larocque is the oldest member of Team Canada, and she wondered how Primerano would fit in before they first met. “I was like, ‘Is this kid gonna be cocky?’ Because she’s so frickin’ good, right? And it’s the last thing,” Larocque says. “Every shift she’s like, ‘Oh, I could have done this better.’ She wants to learn, and she really has a sponge mentality.”

Primerano’s learnings include some new (to her) music from a group that’s constantly ribbing her, asking whether she was alive when a song they’re all listening to first came out. Ambrose gave her new teammate the nickname “Preemie,” given her early arrival at the top level, and Primerano — who’d previously always gotten “Primo” and “Prime Time” — thinks it’s hilarious.

No. 8 has been teaching her teammates a thing or two, as well. “I’ll say something and they don’t even know what it means,” Primerano says, laughing. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s so gas.’ And they were all like, ‘What does “gas” mean?’ And after that, every time I said something, they were like, ‘That’s so gas.’ I might be hearing it a lot for the next couple weeks.”

Though there’ll be plenty of opportunities to offer lessons in lingo in the coming days, Primerano is most excited to go into the world championships with eyes wide open, ready to learn from her teammates and to make the most of it when she’s on the ice.

“I’m just trying to do the best I can in those moments when I get those opportunities,” she says, adding she can’t wait to face Team USA again. They’ll meet in the round robin on April 13, one week before medals are decided. “It’s like, no friends out there,” Primerano says. “It’s a lot of fun, and it’s something I look forward to.”

Following her senior worlds debut, Primerano will return to Minnesota to close out her freshman school year before heading back home to Vancouver to spend time with her friends and also get down to work. “I feel like that’s a time where I can really take a step forward in my game and get myself ready for the college season, and train hopefully to make the Olympic team,” she says of the summer to come.