Month: July 2019

Nearly 200 female players do not have a club team to play for the 2019-20 season after the closure of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League earlier this year. Players such as Hilary Knight are stating that they will sit out the upcoming season if certain standards are not met. The hashtag, #ForTheGame, started because players need health insurance, to be paid humanly, and have the opportunities to work with companies, business leaders and sports professionals. Metropolitan Riveters goalie, Kimberly Sass, stated “it is in our best interest as players to not play next season until a long term sustainable and viable professional option is available”. 

NWHL vs. CWHL

NWHL: The National Women’s Hockey League was founded in 2015 and was the first women’s professional hockey league to pay its players. Their first season, in 2015, players made roughly $10,000 and in 2016 the league got a 50% pay cut, meaning players got paid $5,000. In a league update on May 30, 2019, the NWHL announced that due to no additional investors, the league would not be able to increase to full-time salaries or provide players with health insurance outside of the typical worker’s compensation for injuries, but had come to an agreement to a 50 percent revenue split on all league-wide sponsorship and media deals. 

CWHL: The Canadian Women’s Hockey League was founded in 2007 and closed in 2019. The league started paying their players at a minimum salary of $2,000 during the 2017-18 season for the first time. On March 31, 2019, it was announced that the CWHL board of directors had decided that league would discontinue operations effective May 1, 2019. The league cited that the fragmentation of corporate sponsors between the two women’s hockey leagues led to the league becoming financially infeasible, but that the Chinese partnership had kept the league operating during the previous seasons. The board of directors believed it owed its players more than the league could continue to provide, that there is only room from one women’s league, and encouraged the players to push any successor leagues to pay a livable wage. During the leagues time, two transgender players came out, Jessica Platt and Harrison Browne. 

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Where does this leave professional women’s hockey for future considerations?

Until Next Time

∼RJ

I remember my first time watching a hockey game on T.V. We had just upgraded to a bigger (and hi-def) T.V, and my dad and I quickly grew fascinated with the sport, with all the hard hitting action and very little time for breaks. I didn’t go to a Bruins game until the 2010-11 season, the season when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, ending a 39 year drought. It was a few days before Christmas and the Atlanta Thrashers were visiting Boston. I had prime seating, 5 rows up from Tim Thomas’s net. At the drop of the puck, gloves were thrown off and I experienced my first NHL fight.

Grittiness and physicality is a constant feature in the Boston Bruins style of playing, and I loved it. From Shawn Thornton, Milan Lucic, and Johnny Boychuk to Chris Wagner, Connor Cliffton, Kevan Miller and Charlie McAvoy, the grittiness and hard hitting style has slightly faded from the current Boston Bruins. The Bruins Stanley Cup Final teams (2011,2013 and 2019) all differ. In both 2011 and 2013, they were known as “The Big Bad Bruins” and used fear and aggression to silent their opponents. The 2019 Bruins are a smaller and faster team as the league today is shifting to a more skilled direction as opposed to a fear tactic one. I agree that the game has gotten more skilled based, which is great, but I tune into a hockey game to be entertained. I still enjoy the “Big Bad Bruins” style of play from their last successful Cup run.  

Seeing women being added to a sport I love, and a team that I will always cheer for gives me hope that one day I will be able to be among those working in the NHL. Being a woman in a “man’s sport” is a challenge every woman in the sports industry has to face, but recently the Bruins just added their first woman PA announcer, Jayme Parker,  earlier this year, making me happy and hopeful for the future of women in sports. Watching the game and falling in love with a sports team is something any sports fan can relate to, and for me I fell in love with an inclusive organization that I will cheer for, throughout the good, the bad and the ugly times. Being a Bruins fan is in my blood, is it in yours?  

Until Next Time

∼RJ