Less than a year after its founding, the Professional Women's Hockey League played its inaugural season with 72 games across North America on television or streaming and consistently breaking viewership records, putting the sport in the spotlight like never before.
It couldn't come at a better time.
The launch of the PWHL finally brings together the best players in the world every four years on a regular basis, beyond the annual World Championships or Olympic Games. And it has given the game a place in the game at a time when interest in women's sports has been growing, led by the Caitlin Clark effect in basketball and a quarter century since Brandi Chastain and the U.S. soccer team rose to international fame .
While it will still take some time to catch up in a crowded landscape, after decades of frustration with choppy starts and stops, the PWHL is off to a flying start by putting it all together on the ice and having a chance to capitalize on the growing appetite for top-class women's sports.
“We all wanted things to happen faster, and it felt really difficult and challenging at times,” Hall of Famer senior vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford told The Associated Press. “But looking back now, you have to ask yourself if everything happened the way it should have and at the right time for us to see the success we have seen so far.”
That success is still in its infancy, although the PWHL's first four-plus months have raised expectations of how quickly and how powerfully it will expand beyond the current six-team structure based in Boston, New York, Minnesota, Toronto, Montreal Ottawa can grow. A total of 392,259 fans attended games during the regular season at venues that included various NHL hockey rinks. The highlight was the women's hockey record crowd of 21,105 who attended last month's Montreal-Toronto showdown at the Canadiens' Bell Centre.
Television broadcasts nationally in Canada and regionally in U.S. markets have also attracted even more viewers to women's hockey, following the same progression that the WNBA and the various professional women's soccer league incarnations before it have experienced since the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“This has been in the works for quite some time,” said Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vice president of business operations, who has also worked in the WNBA and NBA, as well as the NFL. “This didn't happen overnight and it continues to be a movement and it will have to continue to be a movement.” There is no time when we can take our foot off the pedal and feel content or comfortable. It’s hard work every day.”
As the puck drops in the playoffs this week and an innovative format allows league leader Toronto to select its first-round opponent, there is still work to be done.
Internally, advisory board member Stan Kasten admitted, “We still have a long way to go before we are economically successful,” and an expert on women's sports is skeptical about the long term, with ice hockey lagging behind soccer and other sports in the United States, and until there are more teams and well-known stars who attract mainstream attention.
“There's kind of a hurdle to overcome exactly the kind of marginalization of hockey in American culture and on top of that add this additional layer of marginalization of women's sports in American culture,” said Cheryl Cooky, a gender and sexuality studies professor of women's sports from Purdue University. “When you add those together, it creates a kind of double jeopardy for women’s hockey.”
Cooky pointed out that Chastain, Clark and others are becoming the face of their sport to people outside of the fan base and is something women's hockey needs. American Hilary Knight and Canadian Marie-Philip Poulin are currently the biggest stars, including Knight, who appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in 2018. But there is also the inherent challenge of playing in helmets with cages that basketball and football don't have to overcome in building a popular culture away from the ice, court or field.
But this process is ongoing and the focus is on the next generation, led by Sarah Nurse, Caroline Harvey, Laila Edwards and others, to build a loyal following across the continent.
“Role models like that, showing women that they can be brave and serious athletes, I can't think of anything better,” said Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman. “The strength of the fan support shows that something was missing, something was needed.”
Mary-Kay Messier, vice president of marketing at Bauer, spoke just steps away from Hillman at a PWHL watch party at the Canadian Embassy in Washington last month, calling the inaugural season “a turning point” for hockey in general because of the growth opportunities to attract more girls to get women involved.
“It's a reflection of people's passion and they demand to watch the games and they come in droves and breaking records is no longer a milestone – it's a track record,” Messier said. “Brands that want to stay relevant and reach new audiences need to get involved in girls’ and women’s sports because that’s what makes the difference.”
The PWHL has contracts with companies ranging from appliance manufacturers such as Bauer and CCM to Canadian Tire, Molson, Tim Hortons and Barbie. Further agreements and possible expansions are coming soon. However, these will have to wait, as will higher salaries for players and other changes.
“We tried to be careful and conservative so that when we finally got going we had a chance of success, and that's where we are now,” said Kasten, one of the people running the PWHL show for Mark, the Los Angeles Dodgers owners, Walter and women's tennis icon Billie Jean King.
Kasten said the league's “obvious destiny” is to compete in Europe, and an influx of talent outside the U.S. and Canada is a reason to believe, like Scheer, that there are “no limits” to what the PWHL can do.
“It's great that there are different paths,” said Lara Stalder, captain of the Swiss national team, who gave credit to her compatriot Alina Muller for paving a path for the Europeans in the PWHL. “In the end, we need good paths and good structures so that we have more depth and more and more girls play hockey.”
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` Women's Hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey
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