More than 200 women’s professional hockey players released a joint statement last week saying they will not participate in any North American pro league for the 2019-20 season. By threatening to sit out games for an entire year, players are hoping to push for the formation of a single, more sustainable, women’s hockey league.
Their statement was released on May 2, just one day after the Canadian Women’s Hockey League officially ceased all operations, citing an economically unstable business model. That left the National Women’s Hockey League as the only existing women’s pro hockey league in North America. Minnesota Whitecaps forward Kendall Coyne Schofield, who helped Team USA win gold at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea, and has six gold medals from IIHF World Championships, is helping lead the campaign for better working conditions in North American women’s professional hockey.
“The professional leagues we currently have, there’s nothing professional about them,” Coyne said at the espnW Summit in Brooklyn on Wednesday. “We’re making salaries as low as $2,000, we don’t receive health insurance, and we don’t have pregame meals. We don’t have skate sharpeners at our facilities before practice. Our practices are usually at 10 o’clock at night. Everyone has another job.”
The conditions Coyne describes are echoed in the players’ statement that has been shared across social media. The NFL Players Association, Los Angeles Chargers offensive tackle Russell Okung, and tennis icon Billie Jean King all voiced support on Twitter. According to ESPN, some players are hoping that the statement will pressure the NHL to provide greater support for a women’s hockey league, similar to what the NBA does for the WNBA.
This past October, the NWHL renewed its deal with Twitter to live stream 16 regular season games per season. In an interview with SportTechie, Coyne said that deal is not enough, and that the league needs to be on network television in order to gain real exposure. For reference, the WNBA has broadcast TV deals with ESPN and NBA TV, and recently doubled its TV presence through a multi-year agreement with CBS Sports.
“There’s so many young kids that don’t have Twitter, that don’t know what Twitter is,” Coyne said. “There’s a lot of people that don’t have Twitter. When [games] are live on Twitter, they’re not broadcasted, they’re just a simple feed of the game of what’s going on. It’s important to storytell and to learn about the players, and for the players to grow the game through that platform. For us to continue pushing our games to be on television and having kids be able to see us is super important.”
In response, the NWHL released a statement saying it will begin “offering increased salaries and a 50-50 revenue split from league-level sponsorships and media rights deals,” adding “more [fans] watched our games on Twitter than ever before. Sponsors, partners and supporters took notice.”
The NHL previously gave $50,000 per year each to the CWHL and NWHL. When the CWHL folded, the NHL upped its contribution to the NWHL to $100,000. At the NHL All-Star Game in San Jose, Calif., in January, Coyne became the first woman to ever compete in an NHL All-Star event. She competed in the Fastest Skater skills competition, skating around the rink in 14.346 seconds and beating Clayton Keller, the Arizona Coyotes’ 2019 All-Star.
While tools to measure a players’ speed and are increasingly becoming part of the NHL, the same puck and player-tracking technology has not been implemented in the NWHL. The NHL also has plans to compensate its players as part of the league’s betting data partnerships with gambling operators. In contrast, the state of tech in the NWHL could not be further behind, according to Coyne.
“There was no tech used in the NWHL. They don’t have resources to provide technology. We didn’t even get game film,” she said.
Coyne added that technology is much more available when she plays for the U.S. Women’s National Team, including analytics and game film. “There’s so much analytics that go into how to run a practice, how hard you should workout, how long your shifts are, how many shots you’re getting in a game. You can combine so many statistics to come up with a formula for success,” she said.
The NWHL’s fifth season is set to begin in October, but the league currently faces being without some of the brightest stars in U.S. women’s hockey. Along with Coyne, fellow Team USA star Hillary Knight has been vocal in leading the call for change in North American women’s hockey. Until the CWHL folded last week, Knight played forward for Les Canadiennes de Montreal.
Coyne hopes that her efforts will lead to better options for future generations, even if changes might come too late for her.
“In my opinion nothing speaks louder than 200 plus players willing to sacrifice the game they love to make it better for the next generation.”