New Teammates and Roommates Ronja Savolainen and Anna Meixner Taking on Ottawa Together

For new Ottawa Charge teammates and roommates Ronja Savolainen and Anna Meixner, everything is new upon arriving in Ottawa for training camp, and not just the hockey team. Neither of them had ever been to the city before arriving Sunday evening.

Thankfully for Meixner, her new roommate has been to a Walmart before.

“I'm looking forward to going to Walmart and those kinds of [places], I love those. Meixner never been there, so I'm happy to go there with her,” Savolainen says with a chuckle as Meixner walks by.

“There’s my roomie,” she says, eliciting a smile from Meixner. The duo is living a short walk away from TD Place, and their early impressions of the city are sparkling.

“It's a ‘wow’ moment everywhere I look,” said Meixner, who’s never crossed the ocean before. Savolainen, an avid shopper, came to North America once years ago, so she’s become the de facto guide between the two players. She said being drafted by Ottawa elicited nervous excitement that has subsided since arriving in the city days ago.

“Of course it was scary, it's a new life for sure,” she said. “But at the same time, I've been waiting to do something big and this is a big change in my life.”

Savolainen, 26, and Meixner, 30, are expected to bring a boost to Ottawa’s offensive and defensive capabilities this season. Savolainen was the team’s second selection in the 2024 PWHL Draft after Danielle Serdachny, while Meixner was their sixth pick.

Coming off eight years in the SDHL, Finnish defender Savolainen said she’s been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and she’d stay up late in Finland to watch PWHL games last season. She said it was a no-brainer to make herself draft eligible once her contract with Luleå Hockey expired.

“I would say like five years ago I was hoping that [pro women’s hockey] becomes something big here,” she said. “And when I saw [the PWHL] coming, of course I was like super interested the first year of it, like ‘should I go?’ But I had a contract of course, so I wouldn't do that. But it was a dream come true when PWHL came. So I wasn't even thinking twice about putting my name on the draft. This is a dream come true for many people and for me. So yeah, I'm excited for the second year.”

Starting when she was a teenager, the big 5-foot-10 defender has compiled 227 points in 258 SDHL regular season games, a 0.88 points-per-game pace. On paper, she represents a huge upgrade on the Ottawa blueline. Her new teammates have already taken notice – Kateřina Mrázová praised her physicality, while fellow defender Aneta Tejralová said she’d love to pair up with her.

“She's amazing and I'm excited to see how she works on the ice, because she's, I wouldn't say like my idol, but I see how she plays, so I like how she plays,” Tejralová said.

“She's such a strong player. She's a good skater and she has a great shot,” the 28-year-old continued. “And I think her mindset is very, very smart. I don't know if I would play with her, but it would be a good experience for me to try to play with her.”

Savolainen said she isn’t the most comfortable with that level of praise, but she’s excited to prove she belongs.

“I just want to come here and play with all the best players,” she said. “And it's a physical game too, I think that works for me. So I hope I'm going to show my best side and then I probably put a little bit more than they've been expecting.”

A simple but sometimes troublesome adjustment for European players that Savolainen and Meixner will face is the smaller North American ice surface. At TD Place in particular, the space behind the nets is smaller. But Meixner said she sees that as an opportunity to assert herself on the ice through not only physicality, but speed.

“I would describe myself as a very fast player and I hope to bring my speed and hopefully my offensive skills into training camp right away,” she said.

The captain of the Austrian national team, Meixner has played the last four seasons in the SDHL, amassing 131 points in 111 games. She earned league MVP honors in 2022-23 with 53 points in 30 games. With her skills and experience, the Charge should expect much more depth scoring from their bottom-six forwards this year.

The off-ice chemistry is also strengthening. Meixner knew Savolainen as an opponent in Europe, but now she’s gotten to know her as a roommate and teammate. Both players said the biggest thing they’ll miss from their respective homes in Finland and Austria is family, but now they have each other to lean on.

“I never got to know her on like a deeper level but I mean we've connected the last two days already,” she said. “She's awesome and I'm happy to have someone here to share that with me.”

The housemates have already found common ground in several areas. Among them is languages: they both speak English, but now that Meixner, whose first language is German, has played four seasons in Sweden, Swedish is on the table now as well. She also has goaltender Allie Lehmann to converse with through training camp, as Lehmann is accustomed to speaking Swiss German in Switzerland.

“Ronja speaks fluent Swedish, so I understand a lot of Swedish. So she will hopefully teach me more,” Meixner said.

And when individually asked what animal they believe best represents them, the roommates coincidentally gave the same answer: a lion. Savolainen said she chose it because of the lion on Finland’s coat of arms, while Meixner’s choice spoke to her playing style, as she said “a lion is fast, outgoing.”