WOMEN CLOSE TO PAY FOR PLAY
CWHL has advanced women’s hockey, but one big step remains just out of reach
As a captain, Cassie Campbell led the Canadian women to two Olympic gold medals.
Now a broadcaster of National Hockey League and Canadian Women’s Hockey League games, she has a unique view on the development of women’s hockey.
“It’s 25 times better than when I was that age,” Campbell, 43, says of the talent level in the CWHL.
On Sunday, in the CWHL’s showcase game in Ottawa, the best female player in the world, Marie-Philip Poulin, and her Les Canadiennes de Montreal will try to wrest the Clarkson Cup from the defending-champion Calgary Inferno, led by captain Brianne Jenner.
“I’m going to watch this Clarkson Cup on Sunday and it’s really close to the level of Canada-USA in a world championship or Olympic final. It’s exciting,” Campbell said. “It doesn’t have nation vs. nation, but the talent is very similar and the depth of the teams. When I played you had one-and-a-half or maybe two lines depending on what team you played for, but now all four lines are good.”
Women’s hockey has come a long way since 1990, when Canadian Amateur Hockey Association staffer Pat Reid had Canada’s team pose in pink jerseys on Parliament Hill in a bid for attention. Ottawa was the host city for the inaugural women’s worlds, a shot in the dark at best.
Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee at the time, vowed to increase female participation and asked the International Ice Hockey Federation to launch a women’s world championships as a precursor to an Olympic tournament.
Partly thanks to those pink uniforms — deemed sexist by some members of Parliament — the 1990 worlds were a surprise success. A crowd of close to 9,000, the largest to witness a women’s game at the time, packed into the Ottawa Civic Centre to see Canada beat the USA in the final. Women’s hockey was off and running.
Twenty-seven years later, the sport can boast a host of glittering Olympic and world championship moments, largely between Canada and the U.S. In 1990, about 8,000 Canadian girls and women were registered to play. Today the number is close to 90,000. But while the Clarkson Cup is touted as the women’s version of the Stanley Cup, the event also comes with a yearly question: when will CWHL players receive salaries to play?
Players do have travel costs covered and receive a small per diem to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Some equipment — helmets, pants and gloves — are provided. But there are no salaries and CWHL players who are not carded pay for such basic gear as their own hockey sticks, which are that deadly combination of expensive and fragile. Members of the Canadian national team have access to sticks and skates, along with a Sport Canada/Hockey Canada stipend. Other club members are out of luck.
Campbell, a governor on the CWHL board, and league commissioner Brenda Andress both believe the day is coming.
“I feel, maybe for the first time, there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Campbell says.
A former vice-chair of the CWHL, Campbell has witnessed slow but certain growth of the league over the past decade to the point where “we’re just starting to make some money” — but not universally in the five-team league, and not consistently.
“We’re just not bringing in enough dollars yet to get us over that edge,” Campbell says. “We’ve seen an increase in attendance, in sponsorship and numbers on television (four Sportsnet games). We’re so close, but I think we’re still one to two years away from being able to pay the players.”
Payroll issues in the other professional women’s league, the U.S.-based NWHL, serve as a cautionary tale about paying players too soon before a league has a foothold. Campbell and Andress repeatedly say that when the CWHL launches a salary program, it won’t stop.
In a promising step, just last week the CWHL announced an affiliation with the NHL Players Association. The joint venture is expected to help grow the women’s league, but is largely about educating female players to the pitfalls as they approach a truer sense of being professionals.
Down the road, perhaps in two or three years, there is expected to be an official alliance between the CWHL and the NHL. But the CWHL has to present a solid business model.
“Obviously as a current player, I’d like it to happen sooner rather than later,” Jenner says.
“But I understand what we’re building here in the league — we have a great product. And we’re only 10 years in. You can’t rush things and jump the gun. We’re trying to get more people aware of our teams, get them out to regular-season games and just build that fan base. That has to come first before any salaries.
“The main thing is, the progress the league has made in the first 10 years is pretty phenomenal and we’re happy to be a part of it.”
Jenner, a carded member of the national team, has teammates on the Calgary Inferno who put in a full day of work as police officers or lawyers, among other occupations, before a practice or game. They somehow find time to train as well.
“I’m in awe of the players that do that,” Jenner says.
We have a great product. And we’re only 10 years in. You can’t rush things and jump the gun.