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kiki_engIn your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
The second game of the inaugural season of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL): Montréal at Ottawa January 2, 2024. (Youtube.)
The first PWHL game apparently made a lot of people cry, because of the significance to women, women's sports, hockey, these players, future players, hockey fans, etc.
That first game was unreal to me. I don't think that the existence of this league and what it means has sunk in yet. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I was a fan of one of the PWHL's predecessors, the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), and when it unexpectedly folded in 2019 it broke my heart a little.
After the CWHL folded there were a bunch of players, many of them Olympic gold medalists, who didn't have a league to play in, until now. The difference between 2019 and now is ridiculous, just in terms of the resources that have been mobilized to support this league that weren't there 5 years ago. They're playing in bigger rinks, to sold-out crowds, televised on multiple channels, with a continuous stream of articles about the league and its players and games.
The First CBA In Women’s Hockey Is A Picture Of The Future, And A Story Of The Past by Maitreyi Anantharaman (The Defector, Jan. 11, 2024.) does a really good job of painting a picture of what came before and how the PWHL got going.
Liz Knox (interviewed for that piece) has been doing some really good press work in general, supporting this league and giving it and the reality of women's hockey context. Her December 3rd piece for CBC (How we built a women’s pro hockey league: Stories from a 10-year effort) is also a good read.
It feels like the landscape of women's hockey has completely changed.
When my hockey friend and I used to go to regular season games in Toronto we'd transit out and our walk to the arena would take us past residential dwellings. We didn't actually need to buy our tickets in advance, but we often did, and we'd show them to the volunteer running the table outside the rink and they'd scrawl "TF" on our hands. We'd show our marked hands to another volunteer who'd wave us in and then we'd go and pick out our seats. Nobody else I knew followed the league, though we did drag other people out with us on occasion, especially when there were bigger games, at bigger rinks.
Every single Canadian PWHL home game is sold out this season.
I had people from three separate friend groups texting me during the Montréal at Ottawa game, and it was such joyful hockey. It was fast-paced and exciting and there was wait, was that a goal drama, with lingering shots of the net, and I got to see players that I've followed for years, as a CWHL and Olympic Women's Hockey fan, play a game of hockey in a league that their player's union chose, and get paid an actual wage for it.
This is a dream that has been decades in the making. A chunk of these women grew up dreaming of playing in the NHL, knowing that they would never be allowed to do so, and they have worked for years for this, and now they have a league of their own, that is paying them real money to play. It is not perfect - another league folded to make this happen and players lost contracts, took pay cuts, and they have been rushing to get these women on the ice, to have them play, to carry the momentum forward. This is the season without logos. The team names are just the cities.
But you know what else it also is? This is the season where someone hugged their fiancée after they scored a goal and the play-by-play announcers dropped that into the commentary. When they took the photo of both teams after the game, someone went to hang out with someone on the other team for it. When players were asked about interview questions that they hate for a TSN promo interview/smelling salts challenge thing, people talked about bullshit rivalry narratives and being friends with people on the other team.
They're building something, and it looks pretty good so far.
(Games stream on the PHWHL's youtube channel and also on a whole host of other channels, especially if you're in Canada. CBC has their upcoming and in-progress games here and their archive here, including that January 2nd Montréal at Toronto game). TSN's broadcast schedule is here. Sportsnet's PWHL content is here. I am definitely missing things with this list - there's a lot of different coverage.)
This post has been adapted from a comment I left onluthien's post, "Snowflake Challenge 2024, Day 3".
The second game of the inaugural season of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL): Montréal at Ottawa January 2, 2024. (Youtube.)
The first PWHL game apparently made a lot of people cry, because of the significance to women, women's sports, hockey, these players, future players, hockey fans, etc.
That first game was unreal to me. I don't think that the existence of this league and what it means has sunk in yet. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I was a fan of one of the PWHL's predecessors, the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), and when it unexpectedly folded in 2019 it broke my heart a little.
After the CWHL folded there were a bunch of players, many of them Olympic gold medalists, who didn't have a league to play in, until now. The difference between 2019 and now is ridiculous, just in terms of the resources that have been mobilized to support this league that weren't there 5 years ago. They're playing in bigger rinks, to sold-out crowds, televised on multiple channels, with a continuous stream of articles about the league and its players and games.
The First CBA In Women’s Hockey Is A Picture Of The Future, And A Story Of The Past by Maitreyi Anantharaman (The Defector, Jan. 11, 2024.) does a really good job of painting a picture of what came before and how the PWHL got going.
Liz Knox (interviewed for that piece) has been doing some really good press work in general, supporting this league and giving it and the reality of women's hockey context. Her December 3rd piece for CBC (How we built a women’s pro hockey league: Stories from a 10-year effort) is also a good read.
It feels like the landscape of women's hockey has completely changed.
When my hockey friend and I used to go to regular season games in Toronto we'd transit out and our walk to the arena would take us past residential dwellings. We didn't actually need to buy our tickets in advance, but we often did, and we'd show them to the volunteer running the table outside the rink and they'd scrawl "TF" on our hands. We'd show our marked hands to another volunteer who'd wave us in and then we'd go and pick out our seats. Nobody else I knew followed the league, though we did drag other people out with us on occasion, especially when there were bigger games, at bigger rinks.
Every single Canadian PWHL home game is sold out this season.
I had people from three separate friend groups texting me during the Montréal at Ottawa game, and it was such joyful hockey. It was fast-paced and exciting and there was wait, was that a goal drama, with lingering shots of the net, and I got to see players that I've followed for years, as a CWHL and Olympic Women's Hockey fan, play a game of hockey in a league that their player's union chose, and get paid an actual wage for it.
This is a dream that has been decades in the making. A chunk of these women grew up dreaming of playing in the NHL, knowing that they would never be allowed to do so, and they have worked for years for this, and now they have a league of their own, that is paying them real money to play. It is not perfect - another league folded to make this happen and players lost contracts, took pay cuts, and they have been rushing to get these women on the ice, to have them play, to carry the momentum forward. This is the season without logos. The team names are just the cities.
But you know what else it also is? This is the season where someone hugged their fiancée after they scored a goal and the play-by-play announcers dropped that into the commentary. When they took the photo of both teams after the game, someone went to hang out with someone on the other team for it. When players were asked about interview questions that they hate for a TSN promo interview/smelling salts challenge thing, people talked about bullshit rivalry narratives and being friends with people on the other team.
They're building something, and it looks pretty good so far.
(Games stream on the PHWHL's youtube channel and also on a whole host of other channels, especially if you're in Canada. CBC has their upcoming and in-progress games here and their archive here, including that January 2nd Montréal at Toronto game). TSN's broadcast schedule is here. Sportsnet's PWHL content is here. I am definitely missing things with this list - there's a lot of different coverage.)
This post has been adapted from a comment I left on
luthien's post, "Snowflake Challenge 2024, Day 3".
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 02:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 04:46 am (UTC)I mean, it was probably possible to sneak in somehow, but there was generally a person on the door. And also tickets were like $15, maybe?
Also how we get hugs on the commentary and hanging out with the other team - I take it that's unique to the PWHL?
I have basically no idea? The only other sport I sort of follow is figure skating?
I think that US Women's Soccer has a fair bit of gay to it, so I could see some similar post-goal commentary happening but IDK. I know that the media really, really likes the whole rivalry angle. There was some commentator in the January 2nd game, actually, who said something like sure, they're friends now, but it won't last: THERE WILL BE RIVALRIES, and people love to talk about the Canada-US hockey rivalry, but, like, Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette served as national captains at the same time and they're married with children. I can think of two other Can-US pairs in the same boat off-hand and one of them has Jayna Hefford in it.
I can't actually think of a Canadian hockey player in this league that didn't go to university in the United States - the NCAA and American sports scholarships do not have real competition here, I think. (There's probably someone who stayed in Canada for school but I don't know about it.)
I think that players in the NHL are more encouraged to follow/live the media narratives? (Be the hockey-playing robot, among other things.) A lot of how the PWHL is framed is in relation to the NHL? That's a lot of people's reference for what hockey looks like, and the NHL is an organisation that is similarly pursuing the concept of having the best players in the world, but its culture is seriously fucked. The women's game has a better one: I'd like to see that continue and grow. I'm liking what's on my screen with the PWHL so far. :)
Thanks for commenting! (Long response is long, apologies.)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 04:48 am (UTC)All of the US teams and home rinks are really great, also?
Like, 3 games in, Minnesota is the sole undefeated team and also has all of that "State of Hockey" energy and also, like, Taylor Heise and Lee Stecklein and Kendall Coyne Schofield and goalies and so many Minnesotans on its roster - the home game energy has got to be fantastic. And Boston has Hilary Knight and Jamie Lee Rattray and Hannah Brandt and is the least tested team right now, what with that weather-fuelled game reschedule, but Boston and also I think their rink is pretty? (Is it possible to have a pretty hockey rink in real life? Did I make this up, somehow?) And then New York has Jill Saulnier and Abby Roque and Ella Shelton and so many fearsome people and I have been enjoying seeing the Connecticut Whale jerseys in their stands and it feels like it would have a really good fan culture? (IDK.)
But yes, all the teams are great and more people should go see games because they are good games. It is good hockey, and, yeah, it feels like the start of something good.
TL;DR EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 09:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 07:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-12 10:40 pm (UTC)I will say that even if you're not a hockey fan, if you like sporting clean-looking city merch all of the PWHL teams have some pretty solid options this season. Also single game tickets for Boston run like $22-$60 (depending on where you want to sit and I'm including ticket fees in that), so it's not a bad price for a night (or afternoon) out if you can get yourself to the Tsongas Center in Lowell. All of the women's games I've been to have been very family and queer friendly and there's something really nice about just hanging out in that with a hot chocolate acquired between periods. Also: Hilary Knight (in a video with a bunch of other players on the US National team being goofballs).
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-13 05:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-14 12:11 am (UTC)They just had a really fun game against Montréal, with a pretty dramatic overtime goal. (And some really nice work by Knight.) So, a good time to be a Boston fan.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-15 12:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-15 06:14 am (UTC)They've come so far from those scrawled TFs!
It's a different world.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-27 04:54 am (UTC)But I loved that game on the second so much, the first game was new and very emotional in a "here we are" sense, but the second game was just tremendously good hockey. And this- This is the season where someone hugged their fiancée after they scored a goal and the play-by-play announcers dropped that into the commentary. - was gold. Love everything about the league so far, especially when they went after New York about not doing the handshakes and everything was back to normal by the next game.
Montreal is my second favorite team after Ottawa because I will take every opportunity I have to watch MPP in action. I'm in the States, so it's all through YouTube for me, but the coverage on it has been really good.
I'm glad you posted this because I've been wanting to gush about this with someone who is loving it as much as I do.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-28 01:15 am (UTC)\o/
Yeah, with the fiancée thing, I feel like there's been a shift, between the CWHL's close and now, where more active players are casually being explicitly queer in media contexts; it's nice.
There was handshake drama? (I missed the handshake drama. What was the handshake drama?)
Yeah, I think that the youtube coverage is the same as the broadcast channel coverage, less the advertisements. I am making myself watch the CBC feed when it is an option so that they get those viewer numbers, but the youtube channel is really lovely.
Montréal are my favourites, because, yeah, Pou and Ambrose and Kori Cheverie and everyone, basically. I am pretty easily distractable, though, because, like, Masch was a Canadienne and is on the National team and also just a very good goalie, and there are a bunch of players that I am just happy to see do well? (Like, aw, my team is losing, but you're having a good night; that's nice.) I like everyone in this bar, basically.
I am glad you commented, because, yes, gushing, and also
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-29 02:50 am (UTC)I feel pretty much the same way about the teams. There are players I enjoy seeing on all of them. Ottawa is my primary because Jincy Roese is from my general vicinity (and was the subject of a NHL draft trivia question that I made up about her being the only member of a Junior Blues power play unit that hadn't been drafted by the NHL- she played with the Tkachuk brothers and Clayton Keller) and also I believe they have Lauren MacInnis as a reserve player. But I love Kori Cheverie and Carla McLeod too. I love seeing women behind the benches and as GMs in the PWHL (I actually wish every team's head coach was a woman- there are so many out there that would excel in the opportunity, that it's just weird and a bit annoying seeing a man out there.)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-30 09:36 pm (UTC)I don't mind seeing a man behind the bench? I think with the general hockey situation what kind of annoys me is the NHL's ability to poach talent from the women's game? Like, I am apparently still salty about the Leafs hiring Sasky Stewart from the CWHL. You can't blame the people that go over and work on the men's teams, because money and stability and potentially geographic convenience, but the NHL sometimes feels a bit parasitic. I would like the PWHL to have money and stability and geographic convenience and to be a very real option for retiring players and there to be more and better economic opportunities in women's hockey. I am wary of that thing where increasing prestige in a position attracts men and displaces women from jobs, but, it would be cool if all of ice hockey had very mixed gender support and coaching teams.
I think with the PWHL what I want is the union and players to have a lot of power and there to be some good cultural continuity in women's hockey, with players who are very conscious of what happens outside of their rink, both in terms of developing the game and their own lives while active players and into retirement. Like, people have talked about wanting to continue to draft players that are mostly college grads, so that they get the chance to develop as players and also as people - one of the things that I really enjoy about the PWHL in contrast to the NHL is that you do see more personality and everyone has a really solid retirement plan. So what I want is leadership that supports players as people and supports a vision of a unique culture, because the concept of NHL 2.0 is awful.