The NWHL Offers Hope for the Future of the Women's Game
In case you haven’t heard the great news yet, former Division I women’s hockey star Dani Rylan recently announced the formation of the first professional women’s hockey league where players would be paid to play, the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL). On June 11, they made history by signing the first player, Janine Weber, to the New York Riveters.
The league will consist of four teams in its inaugural season, the New York Riveters, the Boston Pride, the Connecticut Whale, and Buffalo Beauts, four teams that are all within driving distance to keep travel costs down.
The significance of this new league is huge. Up until now, there was nowhere to go to play professionally and be paid for women in North America, where the top talent in the world comes from. The Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) was formed in 2007, however, they are unable to pay their players.
The Olympics are only every four years, World Championships come around for two weeks out of each year, the women who are the best of the best in the world must keep on their game even though opportunities are limited for women who want to play at an elite level of competition. Players who play in the CWHL have to find day jobs to pay for their hockey on top of their bills and everyday expenses.
American Olympian Julie Chu has been on Team USA for every Olympic Games since 2002, winning one bronze medal and three silver Olympic medals. Won the gold at the 4 Nations Tournament three times and silver seven times. Chu also has won five gold medals and four silver with Team USA in the IIHF Women’s World Championship. Chu also was awarded the Patty Kazmaier award, the award given to the best female hockey player in the NCAA Divsion I, in 2007 while playing for Harvard University. Chu spent the 2012-13 season driving four hours from Union College in New York to Montreal, Quebec to play hockey every weekend. Chu is the second most decorated American female in Winter Olympics history yet she has to commute four hours one way to play her sport and pay for the gear she uses.
Meghan Agosta has won three consecutive Olympic gold medals with Team Canada, playing in her first Olympics at just nineteen years old in 2006. Agosta was the first freshman player to ever be one of the final three candidates for the Patty Kazmaier her freshman year at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania. Agosta also spent time with the Montreal Stars of the CWHL. Agosta won the Angela James Bowl, the award given to the league’s top scorer every season, in 2012 after amassing 80 points in the season, breaking the league record. She also was on the Clarkson Cup winning team in 2012, becoming the fifth member of the unofficial Women’s Triple Gold Club (Olympic Gold, World Championship Gold, Clarkson Cup title). She also became the first player to lead the league in points twice in 2013. This Canadian superstar retired this season at the age of 27, in her prime. Why? Because she needed a job to support herself. Agosta is now a constable with the Vancouver police department.
Janine Weber is from Austria, a country where roughly 500 girls of all ages are registered to play hockey. Weber played for a women’s team in the Elite Women’s Hockey League (formed by the IIHF) before coming to the US to play for the Providence College Friars for a lone season. She then played for the 2014 Austrian Women’s National team in the Sochi Olympics. Weber then joined the Boston Blades of the CWHL in the 2014-15 season. The Blades made it to the Clarkson Cup Final back in March of 2015, the CWHL equivalent of the Stanley Cup, where Weber scored the game winning goal in overtime, becoming the first European to do so in the CWHL. Soon after making history, Weber was contacted by the Hockey Hall of Fame who wanted her stick featured in the Hall of Fame. The problem? Weber only had two sticks, the one she used in the game and another one that was broken. Why? Because she had to pay for her own equipment and couldn’t afford another stick. Weber was going to be playing for the Austrian Women’s Team in the upcoming World Championships and she would be left without a stick.
So she and an old teammate took to Twitter to get her story out. Matt Hoppe, a spokesperson for STX Hockey saw her story and immediately asked her what exactly she needed. After making a phonecall to Weber, STX sent not one, but four sticks to Weber and a pair of gloves as well and wished her luck at the upcoming World Championships.
This was the reality of playing professional women’s hockey up until the announcement of the NWHL.
While the salary cap may be small ($270k per team per season) and players may only be making $10-$15k a year the first season, the league has nowhere to go but up. In ten years, the girls who will fill the stands for the first ever NWHL game will be the ones on the ice playing in front of a new generation who weren’t even alive for the inaugural season of the NWHL. History will be re-written as the first player reaches the fifty goal mark, the first to one hundred career points. The best part? You and I get to watch history begin in October.
In ten years, Janine Weber’s predicament will be unheard of. In ten years, players won’t have to commute four hours every weekend to play their sport professionally. In ten years, Janine Weber will be an icon in the NWHL. In ten years, players won’t be forced to retire so they can support themselves and their families. In ten years, it won’t be crazy for a collegiate player to want to play professional women’s hockey. In ten years, there’ll be a practical career path for elite female hockey players who want to stick with the sport.
Hockey history is being written, it will continue a new chapter on June 20th when the first NWHL Draft will take place in Boston and yet another will begin on October 11th, 2015 when the first puck drops and another when the Isobel Cup is won in late March. Hockey history is being written, and I for one, cannot wait to witness it.