Will the NHL ever have a female GM?

[deckercky]

* The daughter of a very well respected player will get an exception.

If say Paulina Gretzky wanted to be a GM, she would be accepted.

Similar case to female presidents in the US, Hillary gets the exception for being the spouse of a famous president (she is obviously well qualified without that though but that relation is key)

Wayne Gretzky told me that she would be the best GM in the league.

 

[donghabs98]

Will it happen soon? I doubt it but will it ever happen? There's bound to be someone qualified enough to get the job,

 

[sirwilliam]

Alright, I'll admit you're partly right, but think about this. If a woman was as good a GM as, let's say, Ken Holland, would she get the same level of respect as Ken Holland? I highly doubt it. I'll give you an example from when I played. We had a woman as a coach for one year, and the guys played horrible and didn't listen at all compared to when we had a male coach.

To me that just says she was a bad coach.

 

[UnknownNasty]

To me that just says she was a bad coach.

Absolutely not, she was as good a coach as the male coaches we'd had, she used defensive strategies and everything, she just didn't have the respect our male coaches had had.

 

[poiklp]

Absolutely not, she was as good a coach as the male coaches we'd had, she used defensive strategies and everything, she just didn't have the respect our male coaches had had.

Whatever fits your prerogative. Provide examples of the great coaching as it reeks of anecdotal evidence at this moment.

Everything will happen with time, but using anecdotal evidence hurts arguments.

 

[Shareefruck]

There will definitely be a female GM long before there's a female coach, IMO. If one existed today and were plopped into that position, it could be a good idea and they could do a good job (they just don't have the tradition and inside track to get the foot in the door). GMs don't require players to buy into the transactions, coaches require players to buy into the coaching. Hockey has way too much of a jock-ish macho attitude deeply engrained into it for a female coach to be a good idea.

With hockey players, it's like take the sexism in the real world and amplify it by a thousand.

 

[PM]

I find compared to other sports as well that there are far less prominent female NHL reporters or media members. The NFL has some really solid female reporters and analysts although I don't really know any of their names firsthand. Still pretty new to that sport. I've noticed more in basketball as well.

The only prominent female NHL reporter I can think of is Cassie Campbell and I'm not a fan of her work at all. I thought Kristin Reid was great when she worked with the Canucks but she's been gone for a few years now. What happened to Larionov's daughter as well? Never hear her name anymore.

 

[Beezeral]

we are a long way away from this happening. just not enough females working their way up the hockey operations side of the food chain right now

 

[hisgirlfriday]

I'm curious whether Cammi Granato has ever sought any sort of NHL front office position. She would have about as much cred and connections as anybody as a Patrick award winner and hockey hall of fame inductee in her own right based on her own hockey playing ability combined with the networking connections as the sister of a former NHL player/NHL coach and wife of a former NHL player/national NHL broadcaster. I don't know what sort of background she may have had in terms of business or law in terms of her education though. Her wikipedia says she tried broadcasting for a while for Kings games.

An example of a female hockey exec at a lower level that turns up on google is a woman named Nicole Kupacs. She was GM of the St. Charles Chill of the Central Hockey League (now folded) but appears to now work for an IT company and not be in hockey any more.

 

[sirwilliam]

Absolutely not, she was as good a coach as the male coaches we'd had, she used defensive strategies and everything, she just didn't have the respect our male coaches had had.

So then she sucked at communicating those strategies to her players, or she sucked at connecting to and inspiring her players. Both are essential elements of coaching. So she was a bad coach.

Or are you saying she had great strategies, she was a great communicator, and despite all that your whole team willfully ignored her because she was a woman?

 

[Claypool]

just not enough females working their way up the hockey operations side of the food chain right now

How many opportunities are there for them to do so?

 

[hisgirlfriday]

I find compared to other sports as well that there are far less prominent female NHL reporters or media members. The NFL has some really solid female reporters and analysts although I don't really know any of their names firsthand. Still pretty new to that sport. I've noticed more in basketball as well.

The only prominent female NHL reporter I can think of is Cassie Campbell and I'm not a fan of her work at all. I thought Kristin Reid was great when she worked with the Canucks but she's been gone for a few years now. What happened to Larionov's daughter as well? Never hear her name anymore.

There are actually several prominent female NHL reporters at least on local beats that I can think of off the top of my head.

Chicago's CSN affiliate has a woman, Tracy Myers, as its main Blackhawks reporter.

The LA Times has Lisa Dillman covering the Kings as beat reporter and Helene Elliott
also does a lot of hockey coverage for that paper.

Helene St. James is the Wings beat writer for the Detroit Free-Press.

 

[Viqsi]

There are actually several prominent female NHL reporters at least on local beats that I can think of off the top of my head.

Chicago's CSN affiliate has a woman, Tracy Myers, as its main Blackhawks reporter.

The LA Times has Lisa Dillman covering the Kings as beat reporter and Helene Elliott
also does a lot of hockey coverage for that paper.

Helene St. James is the Wings beat writer for the Detroit Free-Press.

I want to also give props to Lori Schmidt here in Columbus, but truthfully she's criminally underutilized here.

 

[aemoreira1981]

Unlike baseball, where most GMs have been executives from the get-go, in ice hockey, most GMs once played the game. I don't think it happens in ice hockey any time soon.

 

[danishh]

I find compared to other sports as well that there are far less prominent female NHL reporters or media members. The NFL has some really solid female reporters and analysts although I don't really know any of their names firsthand. Still pretty new to that sport. I've noticed more in basketball as well.

The only prominent female NHL reporter I can think of is Cassie Campbell and I'm not a fan of her work at all. I thought Kristin Reid was great when she worked with the Canucks but she's been gone for a few years now. What happened to Larionov's daughter as well? Never hear her name anymore.

i think cbc/rogers has a couple of of ex team canada players, jen botterill and cassie campbell-pascale

the routes most gm's have taken to get to where they are:
- ex coach
- scouting staff
- broadcaster
- agent
- team or league office legal dept

clearly women can coach hockey, and many NHL coaches dont have nhl player experience, but i have a hard time believing a female head coach is on the horizon, especially since afaik there has yet to be a female assistant coach in the NHL or AHL or CHL or NCAA, places most NHL coaches start off.

scouting staff could be a promising avenue. AFAIK there are no female pro or amateur scouts in the NHL, but there's no reason to believe that there couldnt be at some point. The biggest problem here is that the job requires a massive amount of road time commitment, and even in modern times asking women, often mothers, to accept that is tough.

as i've mentioned, there are female broadcasters. That said broadcaster-to-management is always controversial and again it is a route that requires a substantial amount of time on the road.

the final two routes are most promising... agents and lawyers. These are more stationary jobs that are more likely to attract women, and jobs where being a former nhl player isnt at all necessary. It's perfectly reasonable to expect that at some point a woman either with no sports experience but expertise in labour law turns towards either of these routes, or even more promising a former college or national team player goes to law school at the end of their career and turns to labour law. If the NHL ever has a female GM, i'd bet on it being a former agent or league/team lawyer.

 

[GetThePuckOut]

Absolutely not. They'd just trade for all the cute guys if they were.

 

[kihei]

It would take a perfect storm to have a female GM--right person, right experience, right time, right team (Detroit?)--but perfect storms do happen.

 

[Kobe Armstrong]

If they're the most qualified applicant, yes.

 

[sirwilliam]

Absolutely not. They'd just trade for all the cute guys if they were.

 

[janecky]

I think a future female GM will have played at a decent level of women's hockey. She will earn her spurs working in a subordinate position in an NHL organization, maybe first as a scout, then capologist or CBA expert or head of scouting or assistant GM, GM of the AHL club, and then eventually promoted to GM of the NHL club. Natural progression, not out of the blue.

 

[BigBen]

If it were to ever happen, she would have to be a coach first and work her way up (like most GMs). I can see it happening way down the road, maybe when the next Wickenheiser retires and decides she wants to coach, moving her way up to the AHL and eventually the NHL.

However, Cassie Campbell is an awful ambassador for females and basically just reinforces the stereotype that women don't know anything about sports. If CBC could hire a woman who actually makes intelligent comments to replace her, people would probably warm up to the idea of women coaching or managing their team.

Its like this for all professional sports though. Its hard to break the barrier when management and coaching jobs are based on experience, and women don't or can't hold the jobs that build experience (like being an NHL player).

 

[TrustyPatches*]

If women do the same job as men for less money why do companies hire men for more money?

 

[CanadianHockey]

I suspect we'd see a female managing the CHL before any break into NHL management positions.

 

[Invictus12]

Alright, I'll admit you're partly right, but think about this. If a woman was as good a GM as, let's say, Ken Holland, would she get the same level of respect as Ken Holland? I highly doubt it. I'll give you an example from when I played. We had a woman as a coach for one year, and the guys played horrible and didn't listen at all compared to when we had a male coach.

Well unfortunetly, the woman (especially the first GM) will probably have to work harder to get through the thick-headedness of the players.
Coaching, I would think, would be a little more difficult for women in the beginning. It's not a problem on her end, however. At the end of the day, I think guys don't like to lose to opposing teams so, sooner or later, it will even out. In case of a GM... I think women are proving themselves perfectly competent in the business world, so I think it's a lesser burden as the 'door is already open,' so to speak.

Rough ride, either way but, all it takes is one to pave the way.

 

[Scrobble]

We just recently had the first European GM Jarmo Kekalainen (I'm pretty sure he's the first one correct me if I'm wrong). There's only been like a couple European coaches in the league (Alpo Suhonen and maybe some Euro ex-NHLers?). So in this relatively conservative old boys club atmosphere I think there's still ways to go before the first female GM. It will happen at some point and that's a good thing.