PWHL - Your level of interest

[Canadiens Ghost]

The new PWHL (Professional Women Hockey League) begins today. There doesn't seem to be a lot of talk about it on this board.
What is your initial level of interest in this league?
I'm slightly curious at the start but I am dubious it will maintain my interest. What about you?

Click to read more...

 

[TheOne]

Depends how accessible they make it for me as a hockey fan and cable cutter. If the PWHL makes me jumps through hoops to watch, not making games available to watch online or charging an exorbitant price for an esoteric streaming plan, not having a radio broadcast available online, etc., I probably won't bother. As a Yank cable-cutter, every year I try to follow the WJC from preliminary round to final, but due to the difficulty of actually following a game through legal means, I end up just boxscore checking every other day and the IIHF sees none of my money.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Same level as the XFL. Interested in seeing what it’s like, might watch if no other hockey is on that night.

 

[dahrougem2]

I just like high quality hockey and I do not believe the women's game is high quality

 

[Dessloch]

I watch the SDHL (the womens SHL in sweden) on a regular basis so I like and support womens hockey, but I cant support this league of former PWHPA primadonnas!

This nuked all my my interest in the new league.

They have killed and erased the Premier Hockey Federation (NWHL) These overloads just keeps pretending like it never existed, its disgraceful. The PWHL are hockey and franchise murderers, nothing less! And now they are pretending to be heroes and saviors of womens hockey, sheesh!

I wont sing Knights & Coynes praises after this horseshit! They are blacklisted by me and I am sure I will add more players to the list. Anyone just moving on after they destroyed teams, staff and fan bases is not wired my way!

I will hold the people behind this madness accountable as long as they are playing or working in hockey! Obviously they wont care about that all, but its just the principle! Do classless sh1t like this, expect the same treatment back! I´ve always had a bad feeling about these overloards and they did not prove me wrong sadly.'

"The PWHPA wants to be seen as the founders when they were really destroyers."

This is Hilary Knight's legacy. What a great way to ruin your reputation - destroy an entire league because you're on a power trip.

https://thehockeynews.com/womens/pwhl/boston-pride-owner-tells-all-on-phf-acquisition-pwhpa-animosity-and-much-more

Why did the PHF sell the league to the Mark Walter Group?​

We all knew that ultimately a single league was the way to go, the NHL wasn’t going to participate until there was a single league, that sponsors were split because there wasn’t a single league, and ultimately our avenue to the broadest market, whether it be live, or via television or streaming would be the best if there was one league and there wasn’t this kind of contentious dialogue, although most of that contention was PWHPA driven as the PHF were very much a “take the high road” organization.

We had been pursuing a path for four years responding to the PWHPA’s concerns driving improved benefits, conditions, salaries, places to play, locker rooms, exposure, because frankly it’s the right thing to do, and also because that was the explicit stated requirements of the PWHPA to unify, never mind they turned out not to actually care about that. In general we thought the idea of a single league was a good idea and anyone who wanted to talk about that we wanted to engage with.

Talks With the PWHPA and PHF were not productive​

It’s very clear if you read Kendall Coyne-Schofield commentary, or Hilary Knight, or Billie Jean King, or Jayna Hefford, or others that have been prominent spokespeople for the PWHPA, they’ve had nothing but disdain for anything and everything that [the PHF] might do. You can similarly see that in the public record we never took that position as a league, and I personally think that was a mistake. Not a mistake in that we should have been vituperative or cantankerous or derogatory, all of those things which they were, but rather we much more forcefully should have stated why their assertions were false. It’s not abundantly clear in looking at the deal they were ultimately willing to cut in their CBA, that this was ever really about working conditions, compensation, benefits, the future of women’s professional or amateur hockey at all, it was really just a power play and a desire to be in charge at any cost.

I had some interactions with the PHWPA beginning four years ago. We came together with them in an office in Philadelphia to discuss the possibility of coming together. They had previously sent us a list of demands of things the NWHL at that time were deficient in from their perspective that would have to be rectified to affect unification.

Our position at that meeting was, "Yes, we’ll do all those things." Their retort was, never mind, the only way a professional women’s hockey league can work is if it’s supported by the men’s league, the history of professional sports for women is they only work when they’re supported by men, the NHL is only going to support one league, so you just simply need to close and then we can go about our business. That didn’t make sense from our perspective, we had invested substantially to try to build, and were working to build an ever more viable league…and we didn’t feel like they were engaging with us in good faith given their public statements about where we were deficient and what was needed for a league, contrasted against what we were willing to do, which was exactly what they asked for. That’s always been the case, and we frankly have exceeded what they asked for then and in subsequent discussions, but it never mattered, it was never really about that.

What this was really about was a small number of US and Canadian national team players wanting to control their own destiny, period. It would have been a lot easier for everyone if they’d just been up front about that instead of hiding that motivation and asserting it was all about justice, and working conditions and rights, which it just wasn’t."

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I've tuned in to watch the inaugural game a bit but I doubt I'll watch many, especially since there's no local team for me

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I tune in to hockey depending on the quality of the product. I don't really have interest in watching what essentially is equivalent to local bantam hockey.

 

[Puckclektr]

no interest. I can drive two minutes to my local rink to watch better minor hockey live for free.

NOt that I don't want this to succeed, I really could careless. But your market is women and they are the ones that generally haven't bought tickets in the past.

 

[5 14 6 1]

I think it's an absolute joke that every team has the same jersey, and they don't have proper team names. If I was in a city this is something I'd take my daughter too. She wouldn't even have a name to call the team. Go Torontos lol

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

I'm watching right now. I wish the league all the best but won't be able to get into it. There is no cohesive play and far to slow etc

 

[Dessloch]

Its worth mentioning that the league still does not consist of all the best players in the world, there are still a maybe 15-20 players in europe who would make it that are locked up under contract in europe and cant join until their contracts have expired which will happen in about 2 years.

 

[Dessloch]

I think it's an absolute joke that every team has the same jersey, and they don't have proper team names. If I was in a city this is something I'd take my daughter too. She wouldn't even have a name to call the team. Go Torontos lol

Thats what happens when you nuke the former womens league and bury franchises that have existed for decades with existing and growing fan bases just so the rich USA and Canada players can get richer and lie and tell us they saved womens hockey! They literally had to kill the other womens teams ASAP before they had a finished plan themselves.

I totally agree it will become more relatable when they have actual team names and jerseys etc.

 

[robertmac43]

I'm tuned in and it's solid hockey. I'm liking that the league has chosen to add some innovative rules as well

 

[robertocarlos]

I think their goal is to get revenue from the NHL. The top players might even be happy earning 60% of the top men's earnings.

 

[Dessloch]

Why are they talking about physicality during the intermission in a league that do not allow hitting?

There is ZERO reason for this league to not make hitting part of the game! If hitting can be allowed in the SDHL swedish womens league and everyone likes it, why not? This is north america who loves hitting far more than we do in Sweden.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

I think their goal is to get revenue from the NHL. The top players might even be happy earning 60% of the top men's earnings.

We will all be dead before professional women hockey players are making 7-8 million a year.

 

[pcruz]

Thats what happens when you nuke the former womens league and bury franchises that have existed for decades with existing and growing fan bases just so the rich USA and Canada players can get richer and lie and tell us they saved womens hockey! The literally had to kill the other womens teams ASAP before they had a finished plan themselves.

I totally agree it will become more relatable when they have actual team names and jerseys etc.

You mean leagues where they weren't allowed to have collective bargaining and were forced to buy their own hockey tape?

There was no cohesion, no advertising, no revenue and because there were multiple leagues that had no interest in cohabitation, they could never have best on best play or move forward in a semi-cohesive manner.

Those leagues failed because they were set up to fail from internal failures.

I hope this league (that I'm watching right now) succeeds and is a launching point for pro women's hockey at a club level.

 

[Jeune Poulet]

Low interest because it is (so far) poorly organized and also because of the complete absence of physical play. I'm sorry, but I find bodychecks to be an integral part of hockey.

I'll keep an eye out, but I think they have to pull their head out of their ass and realize that they'll need a product of higher quality to get fans on a consistent basis.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Orginally had low interest, but followed the New York teams social media and the leagues. It’s gone to zero interest. They did a horrible job getting people excited for the league. Extremely poorly organized from top to bottom.

And the fact they never even gave the team’s actual team names just screams mickey mouse.

Unfortunately I don’t see this league lasting more than 2 years before it’s bankrupt.

 

[PuckG]

I’m rooting for it and hope it does well so I voted 4. A lot of that will be based on if they can maintain or develop a growing female audience because I and most males likely won’t have it on over any of the male sports on at the same time.

 

[robertocarlos]

Nice shot.

 

[pcruz]

Orginally had low interest, but followed the New York teams social media and the leagues. It’s gone to zero interest. They did a horrible job getting people excited for the league. Extremely poorly organized from top to bottom.

And the fact they never even gave the team’s actual team names just screams mickey mouse.

Unfortunately I don’t see this league lasting more than 2 years before it’s bankrupt.

I'd be stunned if there isn't a marriage between these teams and their NHL affiliates in the very near future.

Why change the name twice in a couple of years if the European model us what is in the works?

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Why are they talking about physicality during the intermission in a league that do not allow hitting?

There is ZERO reason for this league to not make hitting part of the game! If hitting can be allowed in the SDHL swedish womens league and everyone likes it, why not? This is north america who loves hitting far more than we do in Sweden.

Just because hitting isn’t allowed, doesnt mean it’s not physical.

And no girls in NA are taught to hit, you can’t just introduce that at a pro level. That would be a disaster.

 

[robertocarlos]

And another nice goal from a perfect pass.

 

[pcruz]

Just because hitting isn’t allowed, doesnt mean it’s not physical.

And no girls in NA are taught to hit, you can’t just introduce that at a pro level. That would be a disaster.

The comment you responded to was incredibly ignorant.

Hitting is not allowed in soccer or basketball, yet they are extremely physical sports with tons of body contact in them.