A unique atmosphere

Professional Women's Hockey League shows girls that they belong on ice and in the stands

Almost exactly a month ago today I experienced one of my dreams coming true as I climbed the stairs to take my seat among more than 10,000 other enthusiastic hockey fans to watch the game played with unmatched skill by women in a professional league.

Some of the best players in the world were on the ice below, and the crowd around me and my husband was electric.

An instant fan of the Professional Women’s Hockey League since it premiered on Jan. 1 in Toronto, I have become quite tiresome on the topic, including in this column space.

This is because I think it matters – and not just to long-time hockey fans like me who have paid our dues on hard bleachers in cold rinks, peeling open our O-Pee-Chee hockey card packs full of male pro players as we watched men drop gloves as often or more as they scored goals. But I digress.

SCREAMING, CRYING

The PWHL matters because of the fans who surrounded us in the stands and whose voices I heard loud and proud above everyone else’s in that capacity crowd: the young girls.

“Let’s go, Montreal!” rang out the chants from preteen voices who later also sang Taylor Swift lyrics at the top of their lungs and screamed with joy when their idols scored. If I wasn’t chanting, singing and shouting myself, I might’ve cried.

Place Bell was a sea of pompom toques and shiny lip gloss, handmade signs and glittery nail polish. It was like no other hockey crowd I had experienced before in my many, many appearances rinkside. The atmosphere was much more like that of the pop concerts I accompanied my preteen daughters to over the years, complete with an in-stadium DJ who pumped up the crowd with floor-vibrating club music.

Besides giving young girls, pardon the pun, something to shoot for, the league tells them they belong here.

FAST AND PHYSICAL

There were men, too, of course. There were dads, grandfathers and coaches accompanying the little girls but also your average middle-aged male hockey fan who was there to see the game played well.

When I tell NHL fans I’m an ardent follower of the PWHL, they often say something along the lines of, “Oh, I don’t really like women’s hockey. It’s not as fast or as physical as the men’s game.”

Those people have not been watching.

I cannot get over the speed which the PWHL players use to get from one end of the ice to the other, often turning around a play faster than my eyes can send the signal to my brain. Their edgework, as the commentators call it, when players pivot around the opposing team and pirouette to make a pass, is exemplary.

Their physicality, meanwhile, had observers wondering if PWHL players were going to see more of the penalty box during the IIHF world women’s championships going on in Utica, N.Y., right now.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

"It's definitely a tough league and I think it's prepared us for the level of compete that we need,” PWHL Toronto forward and Team Canada’s Sarah Nurse told the Canadian Press before the tournament opened April 3.

"We may have to hold back a little bit, but I don't anticipate a big change."

As Nurse and her Canadian teammates lace up against Czechia on April 13, with hopes of heading to the gold-medal game (no doubt against the U.S.) the following day, I will recall the rush of the Place Bell atmosphere while chanting, singing and shouting from my living room.

This is the best hockey in the world. Don’t let the lip gloss fool you.