Another building block for women’s hockey
• Forecheck, backcheck ... paycheque?
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League is solid on those first two finer points — and still working on the third.
With no set salary other than a few thousand dollars and covering major expenses, fiscal rewards for players in the five- team loop aren’t realistic right now. But each year puts another brick in the foundation.
When an a nnounced crowd of 8,000 came to the 10th CWHL all- star game Saturday, the third held at the Air Canada and the second where organizers were confident enough to charge admission, it was another reason for optimism.
The crowd demographic was mostly young girls and women from burgeoning teams in the GTA and followers of the two local clubs, the Toronto Furies and Brampton Thunder.
“When we were young and at that age. there just wasn’t that attention for female hockey,” said Halifaxborn forward Jill Saulnier, who had a hat trick and assist in the Whites’ 9- 5 win over the Blues. “I’ve heard ticket sales were up 25 per cent today over last year’s game and you could tell that from the bench.”
All- star games are notoriously light on hits and intensity at the NHL level, but Saturday’s participants were feeling some heat from prominent female players to put some intensity into this match, show the game in its best light of skill and hustle. That was mostly the case, even as the score began rising. A draft was held Friday night to break up teammates and create more rivalry in the match.
“Carlee Campbell ( of the Furies) was saying she was born in the wrong generation,” said Sasky Stewart, director of marketing and communications for the league. “Twenty years from now, we’ll see girls play on stages like this all the time and these girls will lead the way. The idea of the league is not that we build it for this year, or next, or for this group of players. It’s for 20 years from now.
“These next players can play for a living, they don’t have to make that choice.”
While some incentives, awards and sponsorships help with finances, “some of these girls work at Costco until four in the morning. To play on a stage like this at the ACC, with the big screen, the fans and to be treated to such a level of professionalism is really important. We pride ourselves on treating our players as professional as we can, but we can’t give them this every week,” Sasky said.