It’s hockey season, and something is missing: Women’s hockey. Or at least women’s hockey at its highest level.
The stars on the Canadian and U.S. teams and others at the world level — about 175 players in all — don’t have a league of their own.
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded last spring after 12 seasons, and the top women’s players in the U.S.-based National Women’s Hockey League are boycotting that league at the same time.
“The whole point of this is to really drive awareness to the need for a long-term sustainable solution to women’s hockey, which ultimately is a truly professional league,” Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford says.
Hefford was interim commissioner of the CWHL, which folded because the people that ran it found the model unsustainable. The top U.S. women walked away from the NWHL because they didn’t like how it did business. The NWHL continues to operate a five-team league, but without stars.
The big names in women’s hockey — including Canadians Natalie Spooner, Brianne Jenner and Rebecca Johnston, and Americans Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield — formed the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association. Their goal: Meet investors, meet sponsors, meet with the NHL, and find a way to form a profitable premier women’s hockey league.
Professional women’s hockey seemed poised to make great leaps forward last year, especially when the top women held their own, and then some, during the NHL’s all-star skills competition. But there hasn’t been much to talk about it lately.
“It’s been difficult for them,” said Hefford, the operations consultant for the association. “The whole idea of uncertainty is really a challenge. They’re getting lots of training in. I don’t think that that part hurts them, but not being part of the league is something that’s disappointing. It’s frustrating.
“They want to have something that they know is going to be there for years to come. At the same time, there’s comfort in knowing that you’re standing up for what you believe in, that they’re doing what’s right for the game, and they’re doing what’s right for the next generation of players.”
It comes at great sacrifice for the women involved. Former Team Canada goalie Shannon Szabados, who played with Buffalo in the NWHL, could have made her life very easy. Just married to an American, she could have re-signed in Buffalo and gotten the visa that allows her to stay in the U.S. as a professional athlete. But she chose solidarity with the other women in the movement, even if it made her life more difficult.
“I have been, I don’t want to say homeless, but I haven’t really been able to live full time in the U.S. right now,” Szabados said. “So I’ve kind of been back and forth between Ohio and Edmonton and haven’t really had a stable place to play and train.
“I have been on open ice and doing whatever I can. Hopefully that speaks to how important this is — and the state of where the game was — that I would go to that extreme to do what’s best for the game.”
The women barnstormed through the fall, playing well-attended tournaments in Toronto, New Hampshire and Chicago.
Nothing is posted on the association’s event calendar for November or December or 2020. Announcements are forthcoming, says Hefford. But it will soon be time for the various national programs to start preparing for the world championship. The tournament is in Halifax this year, March 31-April 10.
The NHL has been silent. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league had nothing new to say on women’s hockey. When the CWHL folded, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman expressed doubt the NWHL was any more sustainable, but wished the league well.
“If there’s no opportunity for women to play professional hockey, then we would explore what would make sense or might be appropriate,” Bettman said last spring. “But by the same token, I didn’t want to be presumptuous or be even bully-like and say we’re going to start a league and put them out of business. I didn’t think that was appropriate. If the NWHL is successful, great.”
That said, it’s believed the NHL would welcome a six-team proposal, mirrored after the NBA’s relationship with the WNBA where six of the 12 teams are affiliated with NBA teams and play in the same arenas.
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It is believed the NHL would have stepped in had the NWHL folded at the same time as the CWHL. A market clear of competition is better for business, after all. And the NHL sensitive to gender politics; it doesn’t want to be seen as men telling women how to run a league.
Hefford, however, says, the women would welcome the NHL’s participation.
“History shows that the women’s professional sports leagues that have been successful have been aligned with established men’s leagues,” said Hefford. “It would be silly not to lean on their experience or the infrastructure they have.
“We know that there’s men in the game that are some of our greatest allies. So I hope it happens, sooner than later. We appreciate that it’s a large investment that the NHL needs to make, but we believe it’s an investment, you know, worth making.”
Around hockey
Load mismanagement: Washington Capitals goalie Braden Holtby doesn’t believe he should ever get a game off. “I’d play all 82 if I could,” he said. “(Skaters) do it. It’s obviously different because, in case of injuries, you need both (goalies) to be ready to play, so it’s a little bit unrealistic … but it’s boring enough not playing. It’s been more fun being on the ice.”
Lafreniere hurt: Junior star Alexis Lafreniere, deemed by most scouts as a franchise player and expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NHL draft, will not play in the Canada-Russia Series because of an injury. The forward had been named captain for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for its two games against Russia (Monday in Saint John, Tuesday in Moncton). The 18-year-old forward has 12 goals and 31 assists in 18 games this season.
They once were Leafs: Doug Gilmour has left the Kingston Frontenacs’ front office to join the Maple Leafs as a community representative. Wendel Clark and Darryl Sittler have similar ambassador-like roles … The Leafs also hired Nik Antropov as an organizational skills coach … Justin Robidas, son of former Leaf defenceman Stephane Robidas, is captaining Team Canada White at the world under-17 hockey challenge in Swift Current, Sask. … A new book by Eddie Shack, co-written by Sportsnet personality Ken Reid, is available now, called “Eddie Shack: Hockey’s Most Entertaining Stories.”
From the KHL: How do you like this comment from coach Craig Woodcroft, whose Minsk team lost 9-1 to Dinamo in the KHL? “At the start of the game we tried to match their speed but then we realized that we couldn’t catch them and we were second to everything. At times we just stopped and watched the hockey that our opponent was producing.” It was Minsk’s 11th straight loss.
Another Connor Mc: Connor McMichael, from Ajax and a first-round pick of the Washington Capitals, was named OHL player of the week for the second time this season. The six-foot London Knights centre has 19 points in his last six games, and is second in OHL scoring with 34. He had six points, including the overtime winner, in a 7-6 decision over Erie over the weekend.
Shooting star: Leon Draisaitl’s 12 goals in the month of October are the most by an Oiler since Wayne Gretzky netted 13 for Edmonton in 1983. The 24-year-old has at least one point in all but two games for the Oilers this season and is on pace for 70 goals and 146 points this season. “(He) has an impact on every game,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett told the Edmonton Sun.
