The puck has finally dropped, and the wait is over. The PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) has kicked off their inaugural season on 1/1/24, in a game between Team New York and Team Toronto. This is a huge step in the right direction for women’s sports and giving younger girls a league to dream about playing in. Previously, there wasn’t really any professional hockey league for women, and the only “professional” hockey they could play was in the Olympics for their respective country. Which by itself is a very hard team to make and is played every 4 years. This is a huge achievement for women, in hope this league will be able to uphold this league and strengthen women’s sports as the years go on.
The PWHL draft was held on September 18th in Toronto, Ontario and was a 15-round draft selecting 90 players from a 286-player pool. The league consists of 6 teams, locating 3 in Canada and 3 in the United States (Team Montreal, Team Ottawa, Team Toronto, Team New York, Team Minnesota and Team Boston). Despite earlier growing pains, the PWHL truly does believe that it has the foundation to be a ‘permanent’ women’s hockey league. After years of many little North American Leagues that weren’t able to remain, the new Professional Womens Hockey League brings the world’s top talent under one name. The pay for this league is hoping to become sustainable for players, so they don’t have to work multiple jobs.
The Walton Family’s net worth is estimated to be $238.5 billion US as of March 2023, so this is far and away the best funded league professional women’s hockey has ever had. The league already has a collective bargaining agreement as well, that covers the next eight years. The average salary in the PWHL is $55,000 which is obviously much less than the NHL (National Hockey league), but at least the stage has already been set for the women. The minimum sits at $35,000 with at least six players on each team making more than $80,000. The maximum salary in the league has not been revealed, but it is believed to be somewhere around $120,000.
United States Olympian forward Abby Roque says, “A lot of us have played in the Olympics, we’ve played on national teams, we’ve won worlds, things like that, and I think nobody gets that this is really what we were always working towards.” Now drafted in the first round and a PWHL star for Team New York, Abby Roque has wanted nothing more than a league for Professional Womens Ice Hockey. On January 2nd, in the second game in PWHL history between team Ottawa and team Montreal, at TD Place in Ottawa, there was a record-breaking attendance for women’s hockey. Counting in as many as 8,500 people, this became the biggest crowd in women’s ice hockey ever. This crowd surpasses the 7,600 at the championship game of the 2021/22 Swedish Womens Ice Hockey League.
This league is a dream come true for women’s hockey. The excitement around the world about the PWHL has skyrocketed. There are tons of people coming from all over the world to watch their new favorite team play and be apart of something way bigger than hockey. These women have earned this. With all the hard work and dedication to the sport of hockey, they earned somewhere to showcase their talent truly around the entire world.
