OTTAWA — After a summer and then almost the first two months of the NHL season, it was easy to forget. It was easy to forget for those of us whose lives went unchanged when about 140 of the best women’s hockey players in the world remained on strike. Easy to forget that the CWHL folded, that the NWHL is a shell of itself as a result of the players’ boycott, and that there is no viable solution on the horizon.
That is, unless the NHL comes to its senses and realizes that it needs to be more involved.
If the NHL is serious about promoting the game, about inclusiveness on all fronts, then the bottom line has to take a temporary back seat. An investment in the women’s game right now is more than a risk — it’s almost a guaranteed loss. The WNBA has been in existence for 22 years, fully supported by the NBA. It has lost over $10 million per year, every year, according to what commissioner Adam Silver told the AP in October.
You think the NHL wants to get involved in something like that when it barely avoided another owners’ lockout by agreeing with the union in September to extend the current CBA? It has major problems of its own, with players griping about the escrow system — which has, in turn, stunted the salary-cap growth — along with the conflict over Olympic participation.
So to toss a huge amount of resources at a women’s league that will not toss it back any time in the foreseeable future? It is understandable why the NHL is hesitant.
And yet it has to do more than what its doing now, which equates to nothing. The women’s professional game is disintegrating, and if it disappears, the NHL is guilty by inaction.
“Women’s hockey is at a pivotal moment,” Hockey Hall of Famer Hayley Wickenheiser told reporters in Toronto this week during her induction. “If the leagues don’t figure it out, I think it’ll be a lost moment.”
The NHL was marginally involved with the NWHL, which started in 2015 and expanded to five teams, including the Riverters in New Jersey and the Whale in Connecticut. (Quickly, did you know that two former Rangers are coaches? Paul Mara for the Boston Pride and enforcer Colton Orr up in Danbury.) The league was planning on adding two more teams in Toronto and Montreal after the CWHL folded in May, but that never happened with a lack of financial support.
The NHL had previously pledged $50,000 annually to each league on either side of the border, according to AP, and that was supposed to grow when it went down to one league. But the support hasn’t grown nearly enough.
Of course, it’s not that simple. The women who banded together to create the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association (PWHPA) have the right idea that they should be united. And of course they deserve livable wages and health insurance. But those things aren’t just handed out. How many stories have we all heard of athletes in the early days of leagues working second and third jobs just to make ends meet? Forget regular businesses trying to get off the ground.
But the best way to do it is with an investor who believes in the product and who knows the industry. If the NHL is serious about growing the game and involving women, there is no other choice.
“I admire the players for holding out and doing what they’re doing,” Wickenheiser said. “It’s clear when the best players in the world don’t want to play in either league, those leagues are not the answer. The answer, I think, lies in the NHL taking a step up. I’d like to see them implement a plan they have and do what’s right for the women’s game — and the greater good of hockey.”
Could not agree more.
Babbling Babcock
There was always an expiration date on Mike Babcock in Toronto, and it grew closer with each day GM Kyle Dubas was in charge. The truest thing Babcock said after he was unceremoniously let go on Wednesday was “that every general manager should have his own coach.” And so the analytical Dubas now has the up-and-coming Sheldon Keefe behind the bench, and it’ll be high drama to see if the Maple Leafs can turn it around.
(How about captain John Tavares, who is in his 11th year in the league — yikes, I’m old — and has seen four of his coaches fired: Scott Gordon, Jack Capuano, Doug Weight and now Babcock? On to No. 5… )
But Babcock didn’t leave without getting a shot in. The man who invented the game — just ask, he’ll tell you so — had to know this was close to coming after losing six straight. So the day before he was fired, he delivered this now-infamous third-person quote that will be batted around until (or if) he takes another job.
“I have always bet on Mike Babcock,” he said, “I’ll continue to bet on him.”
What a perfect way for him to go out.
Flower Power
Speaking of Babcock, you know the last game he coached for the Leafs turned on this save from Marc-Andre Fleury?
There are a lot of highlights in Fleury’s to-be Hall-of-Fame career, but as a standalone, this might take it. And it got Mike Babcock fired!
Rules Schmooles
It shouldn’t be shocking anymore that the standards and rules the NHL professes mean very little. How about the Islanders’ Brock Nelson not getting pulled by a concussion spotter after he was hit in the head with a slapshot?!? In case you don’t know, the shooter, Ryan Pulock, has a bomb. Also, in case you don’t know, the Islanders set a franchise record by extending their points streak to 16 games (15-0-1) with another win over the Penguins on Thursday night.
As for the actual rulebook, it’s assumed that the Board of Governors took out the instigator rule when no one was looking, right? If not, Brendan Lemieux should’ve been called on it twice already.
Stay tuned …
… to Conor McDavid. As previously stated, this section of the column is now dedicated full-time to highlights from the best player in the world. Maybe not the flashiest assist, but it’s hard to resist a reference to Mark Messier.
Parting shot
You don’t even get an extra penalty for a sucker punch, but you get a three-game suspension for spitting. Only one of those things is correct.
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