This is the weekly Amplify newsletter, where you can be inspired and challenged by the voices, opinions and insights of women at The Globe and Mail and our contributor community.
This week’s newsletter was written by Sarah Jones, a hockey player, lawyer and parent living in Toronto.
At the inaugural draft of the new Professional Women’s Hockey League back in September, the interviewers repeatedly asked the newly selected players what they wanted to say to the little girls watching at home. The draft was held at 1 p.m. on a Monday – those little girls were at school. Instead, it was the middle-aged “girls” at our desks, surreptitiously wiping away tears, watching as draft host and tennis icon Billie Jean King declared that a new era in women’s sports was just getting started.
Ella Shelton, who holds the honour of scoring the PWHL’s first goal, said she hoped the league would “inspire the little girls to be professional players.”
It’s a lovely sentiment, but I was at that inaugural game on Jan. 1 in Toronto with my five-year-old daughter, and she’s not hurting for inspiration and role models. Nina takes for granted that women play hockey. Whereas, I was a teenager before I saw competitive women’s hockey, and even then it was only every four years at the Olympics.
I suspect the pageantry of the PWHL’s first game was most appreciated by those of us who grew up without women’s hockey. We played with boys – we changed in the referee’s room and were restricted from entering change rooms even when the coach was addressing the team. The PWHL – which follows previous efforts at forming women’s pro leagues and is arguably the most well-organized and financially viable – is a reward for every time we stood up to men refusing to leave the ice even though it was time for women’s shinny. And yes, I include those well-intentioned men who promised, “We’ll go easy on you,” after showing up for ice time reserved for women.
To watch the league come together is thrilling; that it is already breaking ticket-selling records even more so.
Many women’s sports have succeeded in professionalizing (tennis comes to mind, thank you Billie Jean). But as a team sport, hockey is different. And, uniquely, players are entirely covered when they play. Nobody is writing articles about what Captain Clutch (a.k.a. Marie-Philip Poulin) is wearing when she hits the ice. And hockey celebrates, or at least allows, women to express aggression – it’s a rough sport.
I know that the PWHL isn’t going to miraculously solve the world’s gender imbalances. As reported recently by the Toronto Star, there are still entrenched ice-allocation policies that favour boys and men. And with a salary starting at $35,000, none of the women is in danger of challenging the paycheques of Connor McDavid.
The author and her five-year-old daughter, Nina, attend the inaugural PWHL game in Toronto on Jan. 1.Sarah Jones
However, having a professional league of our own is at least a step toward improving the quality of play, and crucially, retaining girls in the sport (the non-profit Canadian Women & Sport has found that one in three girls stop playing sports by their late teens, compared with one in 10 boys). And as The Globe recently reported, women who play team sports develop more confidence, have fewer body issues and gain the skills necessary to succeed in male-dominated workplaces and industries. Nobody pushes me off the puck on the ice, and I carry some of that with me off the ice, too.
Fans of women’s hockey have had our hearts broken before. We’ve had other leagues that did not gain momentum. Our expectations are low.
For the PWHL, Toronto has a venue downtown, but the capacity is under 4,000. New York’s main arena isn’t even in New York (Bridgeport, Conn., with a capacity of 10,000). Only Minnesota is playing in the same venue as the city’s NHL team (capacity: 18,000). And because the seats are priced so low, Toronto’s entire season sold out within days. (Just like when the WNBA came to Toronto and sold out – women’s tickets seem to be treated like bargain basement throw-aways). Toronto jerseys disappeared the day they went on sale too, as if the PWHL was surprised to have fans.
Yet here we are, and we are ready to support this league – but we want a real league. We want strong team names and proper merchandise. We want better arenas for all of the teams (with instant replay footage, please). We want the trash talk, fantasy drafts and hockey cards (is it too much to ask to hear my kids say, “I’ll trade you a mint condition Jessie Eldridge for your 2024 Jocelyne Larocque rookie card?”)
So, PWHL marketers, if you’re reading this, let the kids take you for granted. Let Nina assume that if she sticks with playing hockey (I will try not to push her, I promise), she will have a choice of teams to play for. I hope the league will offer so much for little girls starting in this sport. And I hope that if they continue to play, they are unapologetic and unafraid of those who still judge women for playing hockey.
If you build it, Nina and I will come – and we’ll be cheering loudly for the as-yet-unnamed local team, as well as for all women in hockey.
What else we’re thinking about:
This rainy holiday season, my family spent far too much time indoors. When I needed some space for myself, I informed the kids that if I heard noise, I would put them to work cleaning. My children, left to their own devices, built elaborate forts – sometimes, castles. They ran around the house finding boxes, laundry baskets, chairs and books for the underlying structures of these castle forts. Every blanket and pillow in our home was recruited. Left to my own devices, I cleaned.
Marianne
Marianne Kushmaniuk for The Globe and Mail
Inspired by something in this newsletter? If so, we hope you’ll amplify it by passing it on. And if there’s something we should know, or feedback you’d like to share, send us an e-mail at amplify@globeandmail.com.