PWHL’s strong first season coincides with growing interest in women’s sports: Sentinel and Enterprise

FILE – New York’s Abby Roque, 11, is congratulated on her goal against Montreal during the second period of a PWHL hockey game on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, in Bridgeport, Conn. The inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League has set one attendance record after another while putting the sport on the map across North America. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)

By STEPHEN WHYNO and JOHN WAWROW (AP Hockey Writers)

Less than a year after launching, the Professional Women’s Hockey League has held its inaugural season with 72 games broadcast or streamed across North America and has broken attendance records time and time again, putting the sport in the spotlight like never before .

It couldn’t have happened at a better time.

The launch of the PWHL finally brings together the best players in the world on a regular basis, beyond the annual World Championships or Olympic Games every four years. And it has put the game firmly on the map at a time of increased interest in women’s sports, led by the Caitlin Clark effect in basketball and a quarter-century since Brandi Chastain and the U.S. soccer team rose to international prominence.

While it will still take time to catch up in a crowded landscape, after decades of frustration the PWHL is off to a blazing start, with inconsistent starts and stops, putting everything on the ice together with a chance to capitalize of a growing appetite for elite women’s sport.

“We all wanted things to happen faster, and it felt very difficult and challenging at times,” Hall of Famer and PWHL senior VP of hockey operations Jayna Hefford told The Associated Press. “But when you look back on it now, you have to wonder if everything happened the way it should have happened and at the right time to show us the success we’ve seen so far.”

That success is still in its infancy, although the PWHL’s first four-plus months have raised expectations for how quickly and how much the PWHL can grow beyond its current six-team structure in Boston, New York, Minnesota, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa . A total of 392,259 fans attended regular-season games at venues including several NHL rinks, highlighted by a women’s hockey record crowd of 21,105 people who showed up at the Canadiens’ Bell Center last month for a Montreal-Toronto showdown.

Television broadcasts nationally in Canada and regionally in the U.S. market have also attracted even more viewers to women’s hockey by following the same path of progress that the WNBA and the various incarnations of the professional women’s soccer league previously enjoyed since the late 1990s and early 2000s .

“This has been in the works for quite some time,” said Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior VP of business operations, who has also worked in the WNBA and NBA and for the NFL. “This didn’t happen overnight, and it remains a movement and it will have to remain a movement. There is no moment where we can take our foot off the pedal and feel complacent or comfortable. It’s hard work every day.”

While the puck drops on the playoffs this week, with an innovative format that allowed league-leading Toronto to pick its first-round opponent — the team opted to play fourth-seeded Minnesota — there’s still there is still a lot of work to be done.

Internally, advisory board member Stan Kasten acknowledged, “We still have a long way to go before we are an economic success,” and one women’s sports expert is skeptical about the long term, based on hockey’s place behind soccer and other sports in the U.S. , and until there are more teams and big stars that can grab mainstream attention.

“You have the kind of barrier to overcome exactly the kind of marginalization of hockey in American culture and then add another layer of the marginalization of women’s sports in American culture on top of that,” said Cheryl Cooky, professor of women’s sports. in gender and sexuality studies at 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 her sport to people outside the fan base because women’s hockey needs something. American Hilary Knight and Canadian Marie-Philip Poulin are the biggest stars at the moment, including Knight who appeared on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 2018. But there’s also the inherent challenge of playing in helmets with cages that basketball and football don’t have. overcome in building a pop culture that follows on the ice, on the court or on the field.

But that process continues, placing the emphasis on the next generation, led by Sarah Nurse, Caroline Harvey, Laila Edwards and others, to build a loyal following across the continent.

“These kinds of role models that show women that they can be fierce, serious athletes, I can’t think of anything better,” said Canadian Ambassador to the US Kirsten Hillman. “The strength of the fans’ support indicates that something was missing, that something was needed.”

Speaking just steps away from Hillman last month at a PWHL watch party at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Bauer VP of marketing Mary-Kay Messier called the inaugural season “a turning point” for hockey in general because of the growth opportunities to include more girls and women involved.

“It’s a reflection of the passion of the people, and they’re demanding to see the games and they’re showing up in droves and breaking records is no longer a milestone — it’s a track record,” Messier said. “For brands that want to stay relevant and develop new audiences, you need to get involved in girls’ and women’s sports because that makes all the difference.”

The PWHL has agreements with companies ranging from equipment manufacturers like Bauer and CCM to Canadian Tire, Molson, Tim Hortons and Barbie. More deals are coming soon, as well as the eventual expansion, but that will have to wait, as will higher player salaries and other adjustments.

“We tried to be careful and conservative so that when we finally got going, we had a chance to succeed and that’s where we are now,” said Kasten, one of the people running the PWHL show for Mark, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Walter and women’s tennis icon Billie Jean King.

Kasten said the league’s “clear destination” is competitions in Europe, and an influx of talent outside the U.S. and Canada is reason to think, like Scheer, that “there are no limits” to what the PWHL can do .

“It’s great that you have different paths,” said Lara Stalder, captain of the Swiss national team, who credited compatriot Alina Muller with charting a path for Europeans in the PWHL. “Ultimately you need good processes and good structures, so that we gain more depth, so that more and more girls play hockey.”

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AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey