First big step
UNB names new women’s varsity coach after discrimination battle
The proof was all around Lemieux as he spoke on the ice at Bridgestone Arena on Sunday night after the Penguins nudged past the Nashville Predators in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final to become the first team in 19 years and the first of the salary cap era to win back-to-back titles.
“It’s hard to win the Cups as we’ve found over the last 10 to 12 years,” Lemieux said.
Just not impossible.
The Penguins flew home to Pittsburgh on Monday with the Cup in their possession for the third time in nine years. A downtown parade is scheduled for Wednesday, a party that’s on the verge of becoming a rite of late spring.
Pittsburgh has done it by investing heavily in their core group and finding the right complement of players and staff around Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang to make it work.
“I always say best organization, amazing team,” Malkin said. “We have great chance (to) win every year.”
That’s not how it’s supposed to work nowadays. Championship windows are supposed to be narrower with the cap in place, not wider.
Sure, Chicago has won it three times in six seasons in the cap era but the Blackhawks were forced to blow it up after 2010.
The Kings won it all in 2012 and 2014, and are now in the process of starting over.
Not Pittsburgh. The Penguins have more Cup appearances (four), playoff wins (90) and regular-season victories (467) during the last decade than any team in the NHL. And it’s not really that close.
The Penguins are right up against the salary cap but they also don’t overpay their stars. Considering their value to the team both Crosby ($8.7 million) and Malkin ($9.5 million) are bargains. They’re not the only ones.
If Malkin and Crosby can stay healthy, Pittsburgh will certainly be right there in contention again.
Oddsmakers made them the early favourite for a threepeat, something that hasn’t been done since the New York Islanders won four straight from 1980-83, a full year before Lemieux made his NHL debut and nearly a half decade before Malkin and Crosby were born.
The University of New Brunswick has named a head coach for the women’s varsity hockey team as the program is reinstated after a lengthy human rights battle.
Sarah Hilworth spent the last two seasons as head coach of the Olds College Broncos in Alberta, and prior to that she was an assistant coach with the University of Alberta Pandas.
“I’m super excited to be here. This is a fantastic opportunity for our university to move forward and re-establish a tradition of women’s hockey excellence on campus,” Hilworth said Monday at a news conference in Fredericton, N.B.
UNB downgraded its women’s varsity team to a sports club in 2008, citing funding issues, but former player Sylvia Dooley alleged the decision amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex.
Last year, the province’s Labour and Employment Board agreed and ordered the school to reverse its decision.
The university later announced it would hire a coach, provide resources and equipment and begin recruiting players to create a competitive varsity team for the 2018-19 season. More than 40 people from across North America applied for the job.
Hilworth said while she has more than a year to assemble a team, the first few recruits will be very important.
“They’re going to be really important to set our culture and to show that these kids aren’t just great hockey players. I’m very much about bringing kids that are going to be role models and ambassadors for the university,” she said.
Last year, Dooley said she was pleased and proud with the decision to reinstate the Varsity Reds women’s team. Now she says she’s very pleased to see the first of a number of big steps to get a team on the ice.
“I’m happy to see that they’re committed to doing it properly. They’ve had success with other sports at UNB so they seem to be taking that approach with this team as well,” Dooley said from Ottawa.