Much has been made of the growth of women’s hockey on the international stage at the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Kamloops.
But what might more important to the future of the women’s game is the emergence of professional hockey for female players in North America.
Both Canada and the United States now boast leagues for their elite talent — the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) north of the border and the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) to the south — and female players in North America are reaping the benefits of playing year-round hockey against other elite talents.
“I think for me, graduating last year and having this year in the CWHL, it has been growing,” said Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who plays her club hockey for the Les Canadiennes de Montréal of the CWHL.
Poulin finished the 2015-2016 season as the league’s leading scorer with 46 points, including 23 goals, in 22 games.
She won the Jayna Hefford Memorial Trophy as the player who reflected the best of the CWHL and was voted most valuable player.
“We don’t get paid and we love the game and we’re doing it because we love it,” Poulin said. “We’re doing it for the next generation, to push.”
The CWHL was formed in 2007. Five teams — Boston Blades, Brampton Thunder, Calgary Inferno, Toronto Furies and Poulin’s Canadiennes — compete for the Clarkson Cup each spring.
The NWHL was formed in 2015 and just completed its first season with four teams — Buffalo Beauts, Boston Pride, New York Riveters and Connecticut Whale — vying for the Isobel Cup.
The prominence of the leagues has been growing.
They went head to head in an outdoor game as part of the NHL’s Winter Classic festivities in December, with the Canadiennes and the Pride playing to a 1-1 draw.
Media attention has started to come.
And the leagues take centre stage at events like the world championship.
Eighteen of Canada’s players are in the CWHL and, south of the border, 10 members of the U.S.’s world championship roster play in the NWHL.
“We’ve always dabbled in that senior league on our side of the border,” Melody Davidson, Canada’s general manager of national women’s team programs, told KTW.
“Now, with viable leagues on both sides, the next step is how do we make one North American league that’s compatible for everybody?”
Davidson likened the emergence of the NWHL and CWHL as similar to that of the WHA and NHL, professional hockey leagues that went head to head in the men’s game in the 1970s.
Eventually, the WHA merged with the NHL, creating the foundation for what would become the world’s premier hockey league.
It’s an evolution Davidson feels is also inevitable in the women’s game.
“It has to be, in my opinion, it has to be,” she said. “We don’t have enough depth to run two really good products on both sides, with eight or 10 or 12 teams.
“We need to build that together. It will come.
“The same as it happened with the WHA and the NHL and how the men’s side all grew and evolved. That’s just where we’re at.”
The biggest difference between the two leagues is pay — NWHL players are paid, while CWHLers aren’t.
Income is expected to be on the horizon in Canada, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when.
Still, the players play. Canada’s women view the CWHL as a platform from which to promote the game and improve the situation for the next generation.
Sure, they want to be paid, but that’s secondary to the larger goal of growing women’s hockey.
“You watch the world championships and there’s a hype around worlds and Olympics, but we’re all playing in these leagues in the non-Olympic years,” said Canadian defenceman Tara Watchorn, who plays her CWHL hockey for the Calgary Inferno, the defending league champions.
“If people start to realize that more, you’re going to get more hype around the CWHL and NWHL games, knowing that all those players, that’s where we are.”