In Fribourg, Switzerland, Allie Lehmann has been living something of a double life. By day, she works as a part-time farmhand at a dairy farm in Bösingen, just outside of Fribourg. By night, the 24-year-old stops pucks for the Swiss Women’s Hockey League’s Fribourg-Gottéren Ladies.
But she said her dual existence may not be a sustainable one.
“In Switzerland, especially if you want a real career job, you have to work full-time. You can’t work part-time,” she said from her home in Fribourg.
But with an invite to the PWHL’s Ottawa Charge training camp this month, Lehmann has an opportunity to make hockey her sole career focus.
“I hope it’s not a distant dream,” she said. “I could be professional, fully focused on hockey.”
It would mean a seismic shift from her current day-to-day life.
“Right now, a few days a week, I’ll go work in a dairy barn and shovel shit,” she chuckled in early October. “And I’m like, ‘Man, in a month, I could be playing professional hockey.’ That’s pretty wild.”
Lehmann played for the Carleton Ravens women’s hockey team during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons. With dual Swiss and Canadian citizenship, she moved to Switzerland in 2020, where she’s playing her fifth season. On top of that, she’s participated in two world championships for the Swiss national team.
Ever since then, she’s been in frequent contact with the Charge’s strength coach, dietitian and goalie coach Pierre Groulx.
“This organization seems really top class,” Lehmann said. “They want all their players to succeed, and it’s really awesome to see.”
Ottawa is loaded with goaltending talent this season, including Canadian and American national team goalies Emerance Maschmeyer and Gwyneth Philips. Along with Logan Angers, these three goalies have all secured contracts for the upcoming season.
But Groulx maintained that nobody’s spot is guaranteed. Ottawa failed to secure a playoff position in its inaugural season, and the lack of dependable goaltending behind Maschmeyer was a pressing issue.
“We need goaltending depth, and we need the goaltending to help us win games,” Groulx said. “So they will all battle for ice time, and they will all try to show us who deserves to play.
“If Allie shows that she has what it takes to play at the PWHL level, she definitely has a chance to make the team.”
Philips, who’s coming from Northeastern University with the highest save percentage in NCAA history, said she’s excited to compete with Lehmann. Both goalies are 24, so despite their resumé differences, they come in with similar years of experience.
“They’ve both been very receptive to what it takes to be at the pro level,” Groulx said.
Philips said the Charge have been holding optional calls to go over hockey systems, and Lehmann has been eager to learn.
“She’s pretty dialed, so I’m really excited to get to meet her and skate with her,” Philips said.
“[Switzerland has] had some pretty good goalies come through, so I’m pretty confident she’ll be able to hold her own.”
No matter what happens, Lehmann’s former Carleton teammate Justina Beard will be proud.
“Her dedication to the sport and passion for the sport was just next level,” said Beard, the Ravens’ current captain. “I knew she would always do something with it.”
Beard said it’s inspiring for the Ravens to witness a Canadian university athlete competing at the sport’s highest level.
“It just proves how good our leagues are that we play in, and I think it’s bringing our game to the next level.”
At the same time, Lehmann isn’t shying away from her other passion: farming. Lehmann’s parents own a 2,000-acre grain farm in Cecil Lake, B.C. It’s her home in the summers when she’s not chasing her hockey dreams or dairy farming in Switzerland.
“I really like farming with my dad, doing the spring planting season, because if I’m there, the two of us can get it all done pretty easy, no problems,” she said.
Lehmann graduated from Carleton with a neuroscience and mental health degree, but after working as a lab technician for Johnson & Johnson in Bern, Lehmann said she realized she wanted something more hands-on.
“I’m in a career transition outside of hockey,” she said. “[Working at Johnson & Johnson] was a pretty cool job, so that was kind of using my degree, but I’ve learned now that I really enjoy farming.”
Since leaving Johnson & Johnson in March, Lehmann returned to her family’s farm before becoming a farmhand in Switzerland. Her family farm produced milk, which helped with the transition across the ocean. It also stoked her interest in farming after her hockey career concludes.
“It seems like over the years I’ve really been more drawn to that,” she said. “I wrote my bachelor’s thesis and now it’s just a little icon on my computer. It’s all that work for nothing. As a farmer, you plant your crop, you see that you planted it, you watch it grow, or not.”
Whether she also gets to see her work flourish in the PWHL remains to be seen, but now is the time to put herself out there.
“You only have so many years to really pursue that as a career,” she said. “I have a chance to make it, that’s the big thing.”
Featured photo provided by Allie Lehmann
