Christina Fellner is one of the originals.
The 33-year-old from Germany is one of only three players at the women's world hockey championship this week who also participated in the first tournament 17 years ago in Ottawa.
The others are Canada's Vicky Sunohara, 36, and 33-year-old Monika Leuenberger of Switzerland.
Veteran Canadian forward Danielle Goyette, 41, missed the first world championship because of a shoulder injury.
"[Fellner]raised the national team," Germany assistant coach and former player Julia Wierscher said. "She's the grandma now."
The 1990 world championship started everything for Fellner, who was known as Christina Oswald in her single days. She recalls seeing Steve Yzerman play in a National Hockey League game on TV while she was in Ottawa. The Detroit Red Wings star became such an inspiration for her, that she adopted his jersey number, 19.
Years later, when she played for Germany at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Fellner tried to find a way to meet him. She couldn't make it happen, but this week, she did.
Yzerman, who was in Winnipeg to participate at the opening ceremony, met her and signed the back of her accreditation tag. Fellner was beside herself.
"I'm so happy," she said. "He is very gentle. It was great."
The other memory Fellner will always associate with Ottawa is the uniforms the Canadian team wore for its first women's world victory. The players were resplendent in pink jerseys, white gloves, white helmets and white pants with pink stripes down the side.
The visual elicits a giggle from the German side and they are not alone.
But the uniforms are now serious business.
The pink outfits will come back to life on Saturday, when the current Canadian team will don them for one game and then donate the jerseys to be an online auction for breast cancer research and for Hockey Canada grassroots programs.
Fellner vividly recalls the shock of facing the fleet and skilled Canadian team that dropped the Germans to their knees with a 17-0 score in their 1990 meeting. The German team had been together only two years and had never seen anything like it.
Germany will face Canada again tonight at the MTS Centre and the result is likely to be the same.
The eight-time world champions and 2006 Olympic gold medalists from Canada have scored 43 goals against the Germans in world championship play -- and the Germans have yet to score against Canada.
What does that feel like for the Germans?
"You get dizzy," Wierscher said. "You just have to focus on keeping the lines and position. You can't do anything else."
But the Germans are going into this contest with more confidence. Canadian head coach Mel Davidson says Germany is a more physical team than the Swiss squad that Canada defeated 9-0 on Tuesday.
But when the two teams faced off last night, the underdog Swiss team defeated the Germans 1-0 after outshooting them 20-16. Kathrin Lehmann scored the only goal.
In other action, Finland defeated Russia 4-0.
As of yesterday, only 400 tickets were available for the gold-medal game on Tuesday. A record 109,732 tickets have been sold so far for the championship.
The Germans had a breakthrough by finishing fifth at the last world championship in 2005. That helped them get more financing from their government and they kept the momentum going with a fifth-place showing in Turin.
That, Wierscher says, was a confirmation of the team's growing talent.
"We want to get a better result than Switzerland did [Tuesday]" said German head coach Peter Kathan, who has worked with the women's team for the past five years. "We know we haven't got a chance [to win against the Canadians] But we want to get three, four goals."
Kathan said over the past two years, Germany has established an under-18 team and the quality of players in the country is improving.
Still there are only about 30 elite players, and perhaps only about 10 that can really play at the international level. Last season, a women's league of 11 teams started up.
The elite team now trains more professionally, thanks to a program that provides help for soldiers.
Fellner is one of them. She does not see any battle action, but is paid to play hockey full-time.
"It's more professional now," Kathan said.
The growth in Germany is good news for women's hockey worldwide. Davidson recently attended the Air Canada Cup, an under-22 event at Ravensburg, Germany.
"They want a competitive team," Davidson said. "I feel like this is an investment in a program and you're starting to see some benefits from it."