More camps, ice time boost women’s schedule
CALGARY — Hockey Canada is beefing up the national women’s team’s schedule to try to fill a void.
Canada will play in the Four Nations Cup in Sweden in November, face the Americans in an exhibition series in December and be the host country at the 2020 world championships in Halifax.
But Gina Kingsbury, Hockey Canada’s director of women’s national teams, says there will be an additional seven, four-day camps this winter in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
National team players will also have access to three skills sessions per week with coaches in those cities, compared to once a week last season.
The national team’s busier schedule comes after Canadian Women’s Hockey League announced on the eve of April’s world championship that it would fold after 12 years.
The announcement rocked not only 18 CWHL players on Canada’s roster, but also those wanting to join the league upon graduation from university.
“It’s really just to supplement the athletes lacking in ice time who don’t have a league to play in,” Kingsbury said.
“Hockey Canada has been working, from their budgeting standpoint, on being able to support us more this year.”
National team players have joined others from Canada, the United States and Europe who say they won’t play in any North American league until there is one that is financially viable.
Those roughly 200 players, which include Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin and American stars Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield, established a Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association. PWHPA members refuse to play in the U.S.-based NWHL.
Kingsbury says Hockey Canada’s plans will complement the Dream Gap Tour. The Canadian team’s regular fall camp is coming up Sept. 9-15.