Canada's Sarah Nurse #20 and Erin Ambrose #23 wave to the crowd after a 3-2 overtime win against Sweden during Quarterfinal Round action at the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship at CAA Centre on April 13, 2023 in Brampton, Ontario
photo: © INTERNATIONAL ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION / Matt Zambonin
Mark it in your calendars and diaries and history books. Thursday, June 29, 2023, is the birth of the future of women’s hockey. On that date, Billie Jean King Enterprises and the Mark Walter Group purchased the entire, seven-team PHF, thus paving the way for one women’s hockey league to emerge from both that league and the collection of world-class players that form the PWHPA.
Call it the start of stability for women’s hockey in North America. With a plan in place to inaugurate a pro league in January, the new owners are planning on six teams, each with a roster of 23 players, thereby creating 198 positions for the world’s best players. Given that the Canadians and Americans from the IIHF Women’s World Championship represent the best 40 players, and the PWHPA consists of 80 members, that will leave nearly 120 positions available for current PHF players. Bottom line, there is plenty of room for players from both leagues to play together, as the best of the PHF and the best of the PWHPA will join forces to create a “super league.”
But as important are the new owners, who have great wealth, tremendous business connections, and unlimited potential. Mark Walter is the co-owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and Billie Jean King is perhaps the most important and influential female athlete in history.
There is work to be done. The road ahead is not easy. But for the first time in the history of the women’s game, there is clarity. A vision. A way forward. This has not been a simple path, and it has not been one carved by just one or two people.
How did we get here? Who got us to this point in women’s hockey?
At the end, the answer might be Hilary Knight and Kendal Coyne Schofield, Marie-Philip Poulin and Sarah Nurse. But at the beginning? Well, that was a long time ago, many names ago.
Think Shirley Cameron. Think France St. Louis, Fran Rider, Cassie Campbell, and Cammi Granato. Think Angela James and Dave McMaster, Ben Smith and Manon Rheaume, Nancy Drolet and the woman in black, Shannon Miller.
Rider organized the first unofficial Women’s World Championship in 1987. Canada had two teams. Games were three periods of 15 minutes, and teams played two games in a day at least once. Out of that came the first official IIHF Women’s World Championship, sanctioned by the IIHF in 1990 and held in Ottawa. The gold-medal game between Canada and the United States was shown on TSN and proved a huge success.
The IIHF was impressed. Council members Walter Bush, Jr. and Murray Costello pushed for more. In 1998, women’s hockey became an Olympic event, and the U.S. shocked Canada in the finals to win the first-ever gold medal.
In 1997, the IIHF had made the Women’s World Championship an annual event in non-Olympic years, and in 2008 it inducted the first women into its Hall of Fame—James, Granato, and Geraldine Heaney. Two years later, the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto followed suit. At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, a mind-boggling 12 million Canadians watched the Canada-U.S. gold-medal game, proving beyond all doubt the power of the rivalry, the power of top-flight women’s hockey.
By 2017, the game was in a good place, but not a great place. The U.S. was set to host that year’s Women’s Worlds at its U18 NTDP base in Michigan, but their own players, led by Knight and Schofield, threatened to boycott the event unless the players received a more respectful contract form USA Hockey. At the time, It was an unconscionable act of aggression, on home ice, as it were. USA Hockey relented, however, and in overtime of the gold-medal game Knight, on a drop pass from Coyne Schofield, scored what she has said was the most important goal of her career.
But there was more fight coming. In 2019, the CWHL ceased operations in Canada, and the Americans, playing in the parallel NWHL in the United States, quit their league in support. Bitter enemies on ice locked arms off it to promise they would not play league hockey again until a fully professional league could be created, one that had a schedule and championship, but more important one that had a CBA, formidable sponsors, a proper TV contract and world-class facilities and all the other elements of a fully professional league.
They called themselves the PWHPA—Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association—and their leader was Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford. They operated like a barnstorming team, moving from city to city and playing games with each other on weekends. They scrounged for sponsors, hoped for TV coverage, and promoted themselves as they had every step of the way since 1990.
And then in May 2022, the PWHPA hit paydirt. BJK Enterprises and the Mark Walter Group came on board, specifically with the ambition to start a fully professional women’s hockey league. From that moment on, the top women not only had an ambition, they had a focus, a goal line, and a clear means of getting there.
For the last 14 months, they aimed for better, for more, for the top. They promised the best and worked towards a true league. The PHF had the organization. It had the Isobel Cup and structure, but it didn’t have the top players from North America. On June 29, that changed. Billie Jean King, an icon, an historic and irreplaceable figure in the sporting world, championed the PWHPA, praised its players and glorified the sport. Through her efforts and the support of the Mark Walter Group, they bought the PHF and ensured stability for the PWHPA players.
The future is hazy still. There is much work to be done. According to PHF commissioner Regan Carey PHF contracts have been voided, and PWHPA players will vote on a CBA in the coming days. But the future is now, and the imminent arrival of a true women’s league in sight. The best will play with and against the best, and from the ashes of the PHF and the PWHPA will emerge one league, six teams featuring the best players in the world, not only from North America but throughout Europe as well.
The future of women’s hockey starts now.
Call it the start of stability for women’s hockey in North America. With a plan in place to inaugurate a pro league in January, the new owners are planning on six teams, each with a roster of 23 players, thereby creating 198 positions for the world’s best players. Given that the Canadians and Americans from the IIHF Women’s World Championship represent the best 40 players, and the PWHPA consists of 80 members, that will leave nearly 120 positions available for current PHF players. Bottom line, there is plenty of room for players from both leagues to play together, as the best of the PHF and the best of the PWHPA will join forces to create a “super league.”
But as important are the new owners, who have great wealth, tremendous business connections, and unlimited potential. Mark Walter is the co-owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and Billie Jean King is perhaps the most important and influential female athlete in history.
There is work to be done. The road ahead is not easy. But for the first time in the history of the women’s game, there is clarity. A vision. A way forward. This has not been a simple path, and it has not been one carved by just one or two people.
How did we get here? Who got us to this point in women’s hockey?
At the end, the answer might be Hilary Knight and Kendal Coyne Schofield, Marie-Philip Poulin and Sarah Nurse. But at the beginning? Well, that was a long time ago, many names ago.
Think Shirley Cameron. Think France St. Louis, Fran Rider, Cassie Campbell, and Cammi Granato. Think Angela James and Dave McMaster, Ben Smith and Manon Rheaume, Nancy Drolet and the woman in black, Shannon Miller.
Rider organized the first unofficial Women’s World Championship in 1987. Canada had two teams. Games were three periods of 15 minutes, and teams played two games in a day at least once. Out of that came the first official IIHF Women’s World Championship, sanctioned by the IIHF in 1990 and held in Ottawa. The gold-medal game between Canada and the United States was shown on TSN and proved a huge success.
The IIHF was impressed. Council members Walter Bush, Jr. and Murray Costello pushed for more. In 1998, women’s hockey became an Olympic event, and the U.S. shocked Canada in the finals to win the first-ever gold medal.
In 1997, the IIHF had made the Women’s World Championship an annual event in non-Olympic years, and in 2008 it inducted the first women into its Hall of Fame—James, Granato, and Geraldine Heaney. Two years later, the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto followed suit. At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, a mind-boggling 12 million Canadians watched the Canada-U.S. gold-medal game, proving beyond all doubt the power of the rivalry, the power of top-flight women’s hockey.
By 2017, the game was in a good place, but not a great place. The U.S. was set to host that year’s Women’s Worlds at its U18 NTDP base in Michigan, but their own players, led by Knight and Schofield, threatened to boycott the event unless the players received a more respectful contract form USA Hockey. At the time, It was an unconscionable act of aggression, on home ice, as it were. USA Hockey relented, however, and in overtime of the gold-medal game Knight, on a drop pass from Coyne Schofield, scored what she has said was the most important goal of her career.
But there was more fight coming. In 2019, the CWHL ceased operations in Canada, and the Americans, playing in the parallel NWHL in the United States, quit their league in support. Bitter enemies on ice locked arms off it to promise they would not play league hockey again until a fully professional league could be created, one that had a schedule and championship, but more important one that had a CBA, formidable sponsors, a proper TV contract and world-class facilities and all the other elements of a fully professional league.
They called themselves the PWHPA—Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association—and their leader was Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford. They operated like a barnstorming team, moving from city to city and playing games with each other on weekends. They scrounged for sponsors, hoped for TV coverage, and promoted themselves as they had every step of the way since 1990.
And then in May 2022, the PWHPA hit paydirt. BJK Enterprises and the Mark Walter Group came on board, specifically with the ambition to start a fully professional women’s hockey league. From that moment on, the top women not only had an ambition, they had a focus, a goal line, and a clear means of getting there.
For the last 14 months, they aimed for better, for more, for the top. They promised the best and worked towards a true league. The PHF had the organization. It had the Isobel Cup and structure, but it didn’t have the top players from North America. On June 29, that changed. Billie Jean King, an icon, an historic and irreplaceable figure in the sporting world, championed the PWHPA, praised its players and glorified the sport. Through her efforts and the support of the Mark Walter Group, they bought the PHF and ensured stability for the PWHPA players.
The future is hazy still. There is much work to be done. According to PHF commissioner Regan Carey PHF contracts have been voided, and PWHPA players will vote on a CBA in the coming days. But the future is now, and the imminent arrival of a true women’s league in sight. The best will play with and against the best, and from the ashes of the PHF and the PWHPA will emerge one league, six teams featuring the best players in the world, not only from North America but throughout Europe as well.
The future of women’s hockey starts now.