Dave Feschuk: Toronto’s new NWHL franchise is counting on women to develop women’s hockey

There was something to be admired about Wednesday’s announcement of a Toronto franchise in the National Women’s Hockey League.

For one thing, it took some chutzpa for the team’s overseers to choose the thick of a global pandemic to make public their plan for their league’s sixth team and its first Canadian franchise. Considering nobody is laying a skate on an ice surface this side of Sweden any time soon, this is essentially a theoretical entity. The team still doesn’t have a name (although it’s inviting fans to submit ideas at NWHL.zone). It’s got all of five players under contract. Its eventual existence depends on the world one day returning to some state of pre-coronavirus normalcy.

And even assuming the playing of the national winter sport will one day re-emerge as a civic staple, planting a flag in the sports-saturated GTA, which has always been more of a Maple Leafs town than a hockey one, is never easy business.

Given all that, the league happily declared its commitment to making a go of things in its quest to continue growing the women’s game. To an optimist, it makes some sense. Judging by the massive interest in its well-watched Olympic product, women’s hockey ought to be bigger, but its supporters haven’t yet found the formula for sustainable growth beyond the five-ringed Games.

“Toronto’s the greatest hockey city in the greatest hockey country in the world,” said Digit Murphy, the newly installed president of the Toronto franchise. “What’s not to love?”

Women’s hockey, of course, is a sport very much divided. While the NWHL was in operation this past season, the rival Canadian Women’s Hockey League — where the bulk of the world’s best players had been competing — was shuttered last May. In lieu of a league, many of the CWHL’s displaced athletes formed the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association and embarked on the Dream Gap Tour. Organizers of the tour talked of their hope of attracting an angel investor to start a new league and provide their undeniably skilled workforce with sustainable existences as full-time pro athletes. There were expressions of hope that the National Hockey League would step forward to form a hockey equivalent of the WNBA.

But the NHL has repeatedly insisted it won’t enter the women’s market so long as there’s an existing league in operation. And the NWHL, for all it lacks of on-ice star power, seems possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit that suggests it won’t die so easily.

The leader of the ownership group of the Toronto franchise, Johanna Neilson Boynton, is a former captain of the Harvard hockey team who is now CEO and co-founder of a firm that designs and builds upscale homes near Boston. The team’s chairman, Tyler Tumminia, has a long history working in minor-league baseball, one of the North American epicentres of ingenious gimmickry aimed at putting butts in seats. (Tumminia is also the daughter of a Chicago White Sox scout and her husband, former Blue Jays executive Ben Cherington, is the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.)

Murphy, for her part, is one of the winningest coaches in the history of NCAA women’s hockey and a long-time advocate for women running women’s sports.

“I’ve always seen the NHL as a sponsor, not an owner, of women’s sports. That’s the way I see it,” Murphy said. “I think that women need to stand on their own two feet … The model that exists now is the WNBA model, where the NBA owns the league. And that’s what the players want. And that’s awesome. But I think there’s also another way to look at it. My question is, ‘Is it the NHL’s job to do it?’ I think it’s our responsibility as women.”

Murphy said the bulk of the women who play high-level sports in North America have two main reference points for how sports ought to be run.

“We think of it like the NCAA model or the Olympic model,” she said.

Both of those organizations are essentially run by men. And both are supported by unique economies. Women’s sports programs in the NCAA are allocated money based on their Title IX rights to equal funding. Olympic teams are often funded by national federations. But pro sports are different.

“It’s a capitalistic economy. Not everything’s for free,” Murphy said. “You start to think about what everyone wants for women’s sports — a sustainable living wage. But when you start to do the math from a business perspective, you really need to get a lot of people watching it. You really need paid ticket holders. You really need merchandise. A lot of coaches and players forget about that.”

In announcing the launch of the NWHL’s Toronto team, there was big talk of investments in smart marketing and desirable merchandise and outside-the-box innovation. If you listened to it all, you could get the sense the principals were making a statement. While the PWHPA waits to be rescued by its moneyed saviour, the NWHL is at least making a go of saving itself. That’s not to say anyone has it figured out. The plan is for Toronto’s 20-player NWHL roster to split a combined $150,000 in salary for a 20-game schedule set to begin in mid-November — not exactly a living wage. But a team run by entrepreneurs seems to be attracting athletes not averse to some side hustle.

Hamilton defender Kristen Barbara, formerly of the CWHL’s Markham Thunder, works as an on-ice skills coach and an off-ice personal trainer when she’s not completing training as a firefighter. Michigan winger Shiann Darkangelo, who played for the United States at the 2016 world championship, runs a nutrition company when she’s not working for an employee-engagement platform. Manitoba forward Taylor Woods is a skills coach, a strength coach and a minor-hockey tournament director, among other gigs.

“It’s not a living wage. But at least you’re not paying to play hockey,” Darkangelo said.

To which the members of the PWHPA might reply: This is exactly the kind of hand-to-mouth existence the Dream Gap Tour has been campaigning against.

To which Murphy says, it’s early days.

“This is about the long term. It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Murphy said. “I respect what the PWHPA is trying to do, and I honour their mission. But I personally would rather work together to unite the game, because it’s just a small world. It doesn’t do any good to build barriers. We’ve got to build bridges. We’re here with open arms. We’re ready to embrace the unity that hockey needs right now … And my phone’s ringing off the hook with people who want to play.”