Monday is shaping as much as be a historic day in Canadian hockey with the primary draft of the model new Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League.
The league was shaped over the summer time with particulars introduced Aug. 29.
“We have now by no means seen extra pleasure and demand for ladies’s sports activities, and thru the launch of this league, the highest ladies’s gamers on this planet could have the chance to achieve even larger heights,” stated Jayna Hefford, PWHL senior vice-president of hockey operations, on the time.
Curiosity within the ladies’s sport is excessive.
Final yr, 2.7 million individuals in Canada watched the the Olympic gold medal sport in Beijing between the Canadian and U.S. ladies. And The Athletic reported that the sport averaged 3.54 million viewers within the U.S., greater than any NHL sport televised within the U.S. within the 2021-22 season.
So how did we get right here? And what might this imply for skilled ladies’s groups going ahead by way of salaries, stability and protection?
Right here’s a fast primer to get you up to the mark, even should you’ve by no means hit the ice.
What’s the PWHL?
The Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League was created over the summer time, after the Premier Hockey Federation, one other skilled league for ladies’s hockey that began in 2015, was purchased out in July.
Issues moved comparatively rapidly.
The brand new league was formally introduced Aug. 29 after ratifying a collective bargaining settlement with the house owners in early July.
The league and its six groups are owned by Mark Walter, chair of the Los Angeles Dodgers and proprietor of the Mark Walter Group. Tennis legend Billie Jean King sits on the board.
“To have the backing of individuals like that, that carry expertise, that carry sources, that carry capital, that carry a dedication to doing it proper on the floor stage, that’s a distinction maker,” stated Hefford, additionally a former Canadian nationwide crew participant, in an interview with the CBC’s Devin Heroux in late August.
Longtime NHL exec Brian Burke, who additionally sat on the board of the previous Canadian Ladies’s Hockey League (which folded in 2019) is heading up the PWHL gamers’ union.
What cities could have groups?
There are six groups, together with three Canadian franchises: Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
The U.S. cities of Boston, Minnesota, and the New York Metropolis space may even have groups within the inaugural season.
The groups’ names haven’t but been introduced.
CBC Sports activities’ Devin Heroux sits down with the PWHL’s SVP of Hockey Operations Jayna Hefford after their announcement of the founding six franchises.
Who’s on the groups?
There shall be a complete of 150 gamers, largely former Skilled Ladies’s Hockey Gamers Affiliation and Premier Hockey Federation members, plus Europeans gamers from neither group.
Every franchise has already signed three gamers, together with ladies’s nationwide crew gamers Emily Clark and Brianne Jenner and Emerance Maschmeyer in Ottawa; Sarah Nurse, Blayre Turnbull and Renata Quick in Toronto; and Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey and Ann-Renée Desbiens in Montreal.
The primary basic draft will occur on Monday, Sept. 18 on the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto, throughout which 90 gamers shall be dispersed among the many six franchises throughout a 15-round choice interval.
Gamers not chosen within the draft will develop into free brokers and be capable of negotiate a try-out or a participant contract with a crew.
Minnesota received the primary total decide in a lottery.
Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Jayna Hefford spoke to the media because the PWHL introduced its plans for an preliminary free company interval commencing September 1 and a draft on Sept. 18. The PWHL could have groups in Boston, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Toronto and Minneapolis-St. Paul, and can play a 24-game common season schedule.
The best way to watch the draft:
Stay streaming protection of the occasion will start at 1 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports activities app and CBC Gem.
Protection may even be obtainable on radio-canada.ca/sports activities and the Radio-Canada information app, and on CBC Sports activities’ and Radio-Canada’s YouTube pages.
Hefford says previously, ladies’s groups may need been put collectively primarily based on the place a participant lived and what was handy, however that is going to be about the place they “finest match right into a puzzle to win a championship.”
When does the season begin?
Coaching camp begins the week of Nov.13, and the inaugural 24-game season begins in January.
There shall be a Championship Cup up for grabs, too. No identify for it but both.
How can I watch?
Broadcast and/or streaming offers are nonetheless being labored out however the league says it’s aiming to make all of the video games obtainable.
Former NHL basic supervisor Brian Burke spoke to the media after being named the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League Gamers’ Affiliation government director.
Different ladies’s hockey leagues have folded. What’s completely different this time?
Hefford says she hopes the brand new league will “set the bar.”
She says the PWHL is seeking to the WNBA and the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League and studying from their experiences about what has labored, and what has not.
“I actually suppose we’re going to set the usual,” she stated. “We have now a gaggle that’s behind this that’s dedicated to so many issues past simply ladies’s hockey, however round equality and equal alternative.”
Key this time, she says, is the collective bargaining settlement.
“It offers certainty for the athletes. It offers certainty round working circumstances, participant security, meals, housing. For the possession group, it’s sustainability. It’s guaranteeing that we’re on a path to make this profitable in the long run.“
After years of forwards and backwards, the Ladies’s Skilled Hockey League has lastly been established. Six groups in whole — three of them in Canadian cities — will play a 24-game season anticipated to begin in November.
Are the ladies being paid the identical as NHL males?
Not even shut.
In line with the NHL Collective Bargaining Settlement, the minimal participant wage for the 2022-23 season is $750,000 US. However among the league’s gamers make thousands and thousands.
The PWHL has stated their gamers’ salaries shall be $35,000 to $80,000 US, and that six gamers on every crew will make at least $80,000.
Brianne Jenner, who was on the Gamers Affiliation bargaining committee, instructed CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning they needed to ensure there was “good parity” within the league and “a cap on what number of gamers might be on the minimal.”
Ottawa Morning7:59Brianne Jenner on becoming a member of Ottawa’s PWHL crew
The Canadian Olympian shares her hopes for the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League and what it means to play for crew Ottawa.
Requested what pay fairness means to her, she admitted it’s a tricky query.
“I feel we’ve got an extended method to go,” she stated. “We acknowledge that our gamers are dedicating plenty of time, sacrificing as a lot as any male counterpart and placing, you understand, the sweat fairness into their work and the dedication into their work. So to see our sport have a chance the place gamers could make a wage, a good wage, is big. And, you understand, it’s just the start.”
She added it’s on the gamers now “to construct these fan bases, to draw these followers and to proceed to excite buyers, to develop into part of our sport.”
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