Front Burner - A new dawn for women’s pro hockey

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

The brand new Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) kicked off its inaugural season this week, with Toronto hosting the team from New York. Hailey Salvian, a senior writer for The Athletic, walks us through the promise of the fledgling new league — but also the challenges ahead for the organization, which is hoping to succeed where others have failed. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. So, Monday was the first day of 2024, and it was also the first day of a new era of professional hockey. Here it is, Daniela. The past, present, and future of women's hockey meet right here, the inaugural puck drop. Blair Turnbull, Alex Carpenter, faceoff.

It'll be New York that gets first possession. That puck drop at Toronto's Mattamy Athletic Centre on New Year's Day was the first for the brand new professional women's hockey league, the PWHL. I know this is the birth of women's professional hockey that are going to make it. We have the best players in the world, which is really important. I mean, I am so excited. For now, there are six teams, like the NHL when it first launched in 1942. Even the jerseys, well, they look a bit like throwbacks. No logos, no team names, just the names of the cities the teams are from.

And both the players and the folks behind the new league are optimistic the PWHL will succeed where other women's hockey leagues have failed. Hayley Salvian covers women's hockey for The Athletic, and she's here to tell us about the new league, the excitement, the optimism, and the challenges that lie ahead. Hey, Hayley, thanks for coming on FrontBurner. Yeah. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. So, uh, you and I are talking on Wednesday morning

for folks listening on Thursday, we'll have had two games behind us. There's the inaugural New York Toronto game and Montreal and Ottawa. Uh, I guess I'm curious, first of all, how's the play? How's the play on the ice so far? Oh, it's been really great. The Toronto-New York game, which was the first ever game on Monday, was, I think there was a bit of jitters, a lot of nervous and excited energy. So it took maybe a couple shifts into the first period for everyone to kind of get settled because they had the puck drop. It was very emotional. Billie Jean King is there. A true trailblazer in women's tennis. She redefined the athletic landscape for female athletes through her exceptional skill and unwavering determination.

That game specifically was really physical. I know that was a really important thing for the league and the players was to have a rule book and referees that allow players to have a little bit more contact, get a little bit of spice back in the game. So that was, it was a pleasant surprise and really welcomed by a lot of the players. Alex Carpenter from the New York team said after the game, she's like, that's exactly how we want to play. That's how we want the game called. So lots more physicality, which was

great. In the second game between Montreal and Ottawa, it was great. I mean, they set a record for attendance in the Ottawa game, over 8,000 fans there. So the atmosphere was unbelievable and the gameplay, it was really fast. there was a ton of skill obviously of Mary Philip Poulin on the Montreal team best player in the world and the goal that Haley Skimura scored to score the first ever goal for the Ottawa franchise You know, beautiful top corner snipe beating Anne-Renee Desbien, who's the best goalie in the world, so she doesn't get beat clean like that often. So I just think that the games so far have been really fun

and such a great glimpse at what's to come this season, which is fast, skilled, physical, and good hockey. hockey and the players deserve it and it's a great product. One of the things I found really cool in one of the stories you wrote about that first, the inaugural game, the New York Toronto game was this really cool energy between the young players, like some of the girls coming out and they had like Spooner jerseys on, Shelton jerseys on, and that there's this dynamic between these fans and the players. I found it really electrifying even just to read that.

What's it been like to see? It's been really cool. I think one of the great kind of scenes, and I included it in the story I think you're alluding to, was there were these two young girls with some Ella Shelton gear on. They had signs for her and she skated over at the end of warm up for New York and saw them and flipped them a puck and the puck actually landed in the lap of an older gentleman sitting next to them.

You could tell he was going to give them the puck. He wasn't going to keep it for himself but Ella made sure that she looked at him and said, give the puck to the girls. That's for them. That outreach from those girls are going to remember that forever. You know, I grew up watching the NHL, obviously, because there wasn't a pro women's hockey league like this.

And I remember, you know, meeting Sidney Crosby in 2008, and I'll never forget that day. You know, those are, like, such, you know, huge days for sports fans, and you'll lock in on that player and that team forever. It's amazing to watch. It's just like the NHL, and that's what you dream of, right? Like, as a little girl, I'm like, I want to play in the NHL. So it's so cool to have, like, this league now.

They look really powerful and strong, and I think it's really cool that they can play hockey, too. I know that at one point in life, those girls were the same as where I am now. And they were young, and they were just trying to work hard and make it to where they are now. And I think now that they're there and now that they have their name known, it's something that everybody should be so proud of.

I think for young girls to watch these games and look out and say, I can play women's pro hockey one day. Like, they can see a future in it, but I think it's just as important for young boys to be in the stands and look out and say, I can play women's pro hockey one day. Like they can see a future in it, but I think it's just as important for young boys to be in the stands and look out and see that women playing hockey is normal too. Um, I think that's just as important as having young girls in the stand. So it was, uh, it was really cool to see that. So right now there's six teams. There's Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, New York, Boston, and Minnesota. They're all owned by one guy, Mark Walter.

Can you tell me a bit about him and the way the league's run? Yeah. So Mark Walter is the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He and his wife, Kimbra, are the sole owners, which is, I guess you could say unique if you're looking at the NHL as an example, because there's 32 different owners

or different ownership groups, and Gary Bettman's the commissioner, and this league is set up a little bit differently, but they believe this is what this league needs in the early days which is one owner with deep pockets I think his valuation on Forbes right now is 5.9 billion dollars I mean he just signed Shohei Otani to a 700 million dollar contract you know these are these are people with very deep pockets and they're willing to invest in not just a major league baseball star, but women's hockey. And the single entity ownership structure is essentially going to allow every team in the league to have equal investment, equal opportunity. Everyone's

on the same playing field when it comes to their resources and investment from their owner, because everyone's owner is Mark Walter. And I think that's something in the early days that's really going to help. So we're seeing, I think a smart businessman get in on the ground floor of women's hockey and he's making the investment and he's probably going to be better for it. When you look at how everything's growing in women's sport right now. And is the sense from the players that they'll be better for it too? Like, I'm curious about the vibe. You mentioned, you know, there were jitters on that first game,

which is to be expected, but also just like generally speaking, looking forward into the future, coming from a past that, as we'll talk about, has been, you know, been a little shaky. But like, how are they feeling about the formation of the league? Oh, I think they're feeling pretty good. I know it was, you know, bittersweet at the beginning because the Premier Hockey Federation was purchased and ceased operations in the summer. So there were a lot of players who'd signed, you know, big contracts to play in that league.

And then the league folds and there was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of players ended up, you know, losing their jobs. And, you know, some of them are making less money to play hockey than they thought they were going to be. Others just aren't playing hockey this year anymore. So it's bittersweet when you look at the constriction of the workforce that has happened because of the dissolution of the Premier Hockey Federation. But in terms of the professionalism, the resources,

the investment, the infrastructure, this league has things that we've never seen before in women's hockey and players know that. And players are happy about that. I spoke to a player who played in the PHF last year and, you know, she said that every year it was improving and getting better in terms of professionalism, but at the end of the day, they just didn't have enough money to make it as good as college, essentially. You know, this new league is professionalizing it. It's growing it. And I think the players feel a lot better about the access to resources they have.

I mean, these players have full-time locker room spaces now before they would have to bring their bags in every day. So all these teams have full-time staff. They get meals provided just after games, after training. And my sense from players is that, you know, it's still very early, but things are feeling better. You mentioned things like, you know, meals and accommodations, which seems reasonable, but can you kind of give me a sense of why that, why the collective bargaining agreement is so important to the players? Yeah. I mean, it's significant because they've never had one before. There's never been a collective bargaining agreement in women's professional hockey. And when

you're looking at just women's pro sport in general, there has never been a CBA ready for before the start of a season. And the WNBA didn't come until year two. In the NWSL, I think it came in year 12. The BWHL was created with an eight-year collective bargaining agreement. The players have a union. On average, players will be paid around $55,000 American. There's things that could be better. On average, players will be paid around $55,000 American. salary maximum it's just that uh six players need to make at least eighty thousand dollars or more on three-year deals which would be guaranteed contracts so that gives them around each team around a salary cap of 1.2 million dollars so i know that there are some players who are making

you know a hundred hundred and ten thousand dollars this league, but that's kind of just the top, top athlete. So the salaries still have a way to go, but I think one of the things that's important for the CBA is all the other things that are kind of baked into it in terms of benefits that makes those lower salaries a little bit more livable. So other items that are covered in the CBA are per diems on the road. There's housing stipends. There's relocation expenses. Players get health insurance. There's pregnancy benefits, a 401k program, like moving expenses were covered. $35,000 a year is not a livable salary, but I think the CBA and what the players and the players association was trying to achieve was, you know, making the entire package, um, better as a whole for, for every player. So, so this, this half season, I guess it is, it's more like a compressed season,

right? We've got 24 regular season games, but a lot less time. Um, so the first game in Toronto was sold out. What's the demand for tickets? Do you have a sense of what the demand for tickets is like for the season so far? Uh, there is demand for tickets in Toronto was sold out. What's the demand for tickets? Do you have a sense of what the demand for tickets is like for the season so far? There is demand for tickets in Toronto. All of their home games are sold out this season. They're playing in the smallest rink in the league. It's around 2,600 capacity. So they'll need to get into a bigger building

for next season. But the demand is there for tickets in Toronto. The Ottawa team, they've sold out their first few games. So far, the demand is there. I mean, merch is sold out. The merch lines at the game in Toronto and the game in Ottawa yesterday were very, very long. It's, you know, like people trying to get Taylor Swift merch or something at the Arrows Tour. So lines were very long, takes hours to get a jersey in the arena. So I think the demand has been there for sure, which has been cool to see. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

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50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to kind of go into the history, like that, you know, you've written about the tumultuous years leading up to the formation of this league. And I kind of want to get into that with you. So just as, because it's a little, it's a little complex, there's a lot of acronyms. So maybe just as a starting point, we can start with the Canadian Women's Hockey League, the CWHL. What were the challenges with getting that league off the ground, running that league?

So the Canadian Women's Hockey League, I know the big exhale because there's just so much here. The Canadian Women's Hockey League was, you know, truly and technically not a professional hockey league. It was formed in 2007 by a group of athletes who were looking for a place to play. Essentially, the league they'd played in before folded, and the players just kind of came together and said, okay, we've got to do something here.

Like, we can't have nowhere to play. They kind of just created this league. It was a registered amateur association. So it operated as a charity. So they needed like sponsorship and donations. So players didn't receive a salary, paid for their own gear, you know, in some years had to pay to play to get all the operating costs off the, off the ground. You know, There were some small bonuses paid to the best players, but nobody made a living playing in the Canadian Women's Hockey League. And that was the biggest problem is they just weren't paid. And their kind of whole model was essentially to get taken over by the NHL.

I spoke to Brenda Andrus. She was the first and longtime commissioner of that league. And she pitched the idea to Gary Bettman of a WNBA-type women's hockey league where the NHL takes it over. They're under their umbrella. And that was the bottom line, was they wanted to be the WNHL one day. Gary Bettman told them, now's not the time. And then eventually the U.S. based National Women's Hockey League launches. And that kind of started the split of women's pro hockey. And the NWHL was paying players. It was the first professional league to pay players a regular salary. It was a for-profit entity. So it launched in a very different way up against the Canadian Women's Hockey League.

And women's hockey went on for a long time as just two different competing leagues, which wasn't good for the sport. And as far as the NWHL went to, there was a boycott at some point too, right? So in 2019, the Canadian Women's Hockey League folded. right so in 2019 the canadian women's hockey league folded and the players in the cwhl or the players from the cwhl and nwhl i should say kind of got together a lot of the national team players got together and said like enough's enough i don't want to be in another league that folds i don't want to be in another league that doesn't pay me a lot of money or i don't want to be in another league that you know i don't get a meal on the road or I, you know, I don't get treated like a professional athlete. So that's when the professional women's hockey players association kind of came into play and, and they did their launch and they

said that they were going to boycott and not play in any pro league until women's hockey could get the resources, infrastructure, and investment that they believed they deserved as professional athletes. So that was kind of the start of the boycott. If they grab the puck and go bursting up, they're down across the line. In 2018, a lack of funding collapsed a women's game. The good old hockey game is only that when it's good to everyone. This is step one towards rebuilding a future. For the game we all love, we need others to step up to. Because the best game you can name should be a good old hockey game.

Okay, so basically this all got resolved last summer. Can you kind of take me through how we ended up where we are now? So the big day in the summer would have been June 29th, which was in the middle of the PHF's off season. You know, they had announced this landmark salary cap. You know, everyone's signing all these contracts, everyone's signing all these big deals to play in the PHF the following season. But then the PHF players and staff were given three hours notice about a virtual town hall meeting where they logged on and were told that the league had been purchased by Mark and Kimber Walter and that the PHF would cease operations and the players were told that their contracts would be

terminated and that a new league would be coming but you know a lot of these players would kind of lose their jobs and were put in a state of limbo, essentially. Okay, so once the league came together, it came together like really quickly. And in fact, it kind of reminds me of like a train pulling out of the station while they're still laying down track ahead of them, right? So there's a lot of things that are still being worked out. It's really exhilarating to watch. And one thing, you know, I mentioned in the

introduction of the jerseys, which are these generic, old school, kind of classy, classic looking things with the city names running down them. So among the many things I suspect the league's working on, do you have a sense of what the plan is for branding and naming the teams? Yeah. So I think the branding obviously is one of those things that have been

one of the hiccups in this kind of six-month sprint to get the league going. League leaders have told me there are decisions that you can make quickly and there are things that you absolutely need for the start of a league. And that's, you know, venues, the original six markets, you got to pick where you're going to play. You need team staff, you need league staff. And I think they kind of got to a point where they said, we could have team names and logos and jerseys. We could have that in six months, but they're going to be rushed. They're not going to be that great. And that was one of those things that like you just can't get wrong.

And so they decided from a team name and branding perspective, it was just better off slowing down the process. Now I think they'll be able to get into these markets and spend more time locally with their fans and see what the vibe essentially is for lack of a better term there. And, and, you know, they're working on it and, you know, they're going to have team names and locos eventually. So it seems like Mark Walter, the league's owner is in this for the long haul. It seems like he's, you know, expecting to burn through some cash for a while, you know, to, as the, as the league's kind of incubating and starting up. How challenging do you think it's going to be to make the PWHL financially sustainable for the long term?

Yeah, it's a good question. It's so hard to answer when we're talking on day three of the league's existence, right? But I think I feel more optimistic about this being profitable. And when I say this, I mean women's pro hockey being you know profitable than i ever have it's going to take some time i think for this new league to become financially sustainable like they're going to need one of those more traditional broadcast deals where they're making money to to get on television right they're going to need more people consistently buying tickets

and we already talked about the demand right like these games are sold out in a lot of these markets so that's going to be important is getting butts in seats people buying merchandise things like that so mark walter is you know he got into this because he saw this as a savvy business investment but yeah it's gonna it's going to, it's going to take some time. It always does. And this is, and this is again, like on day three, this is maybe isn't a fair question, but I guess I'm curious.

Like if you look at the NHL, it took 25 years to grow beyond those initial, you know, the six original teams, right? Presumably no one's thinking of that timeline for this. Do you have a sense of what the, if not the plan, then like what the hopes are for league expansion over the next few years? Yeah, they want to expand. League leaders are not shy about saying this is not going to be a 16 league forever. When that happens, I'm not sure.

I think it's important that it happens sooner rather than later. As we talk about this kind of constriction of the workforce, there's a lot of players who just don't have anywhere to play. So whether that's expansion into new markets or some kind of expansion into like a development type league, like there needs to be more opportunity for women to play. There can't just be six teams. I know that there are some markets and teams and people already kind of saying like, hey, and teams and people already kind of saying like, hey, are you guys expanding?

Like, can we buy in? Can we get a team here? So I know that those are conversations that are already happening in terms of expansion. When that happens, I don't know, but it will. And I feel very confident saying that. Haley, thanks so much. It's great talking to you. Yeah, thank you so much.

I appreciate you having me on. All right, that's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.