So what are we to call the nickname-less local club within the fledgling Skilled Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), spawned from the consolidation of two rival organizations?
The Minnesota Whatevers? The Twin Cities TBAs? How about The Purple Gang, after its primary color, though purple won’t be the first color next season?
It’s no help going to practice, where 20-plus players hit the ice at TRIA Rink in St. Paul recently in generic white and black sweaters with the PWHL logo on the front. That’s consistent across the entire six-team circuit, three within the U.S. and three in Canada. Get used to it; fans probably won’t see nicknames and logos when the season begins in early January.
“Obviously, yr one is just a little bit different,” said Minnesota general manager Natalie Darwitz, the previous University of Minnesota standout and a U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer. “In yr two you’ll see us construct right into a brand, a reputation and a logo.”
That is what happens when a startup league with a deep-pockets benefactor like Mark Walter – CEO of a significant global financial services firm, controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the guy who just gave a record-breaking $700 million free-agent contract to megastar Shohei Ohtani – decides women hockey players have waited long enough to play in a league that’s truly skilled, top to bottom.
Stan Kasten, the Dodgers CEO and a member of the PWHL advisory board, addressed this on a Zoom call with reporters on the eve of coaching camp.
“Once we first began going, very smart people in sports said to me, ‘Stan, you could have to place it off a yr. You may’t do that,’” he said. “And I knew they weren’t flawed. For those who had told me I needed to rise up an expansion team in an existing league with an existing hierarchy in six months, I might have told you, that’s nuts.
“We weren’t going to place it off one other yr. I had made that commitment. Mark had made that commitment to the players who had been fighting for this to so long, not to place it off one other yr.”
That meant doing all the things in haste, with the understanding that some things – like uniforms, logos and nicknames – won’t occur.
“I’m glad we took the challenge of standing this league up in six months, since the stuff that’s necessary – getting the very best players, getting them on teams, getting them in places where fans are really going to enjoy them – that we got right,” Kasten said. “It’s not only that it’s historic. What we’ve got done is significant. It’s necessary to this generation of players. It’s necessary to the generations of players that follow, to female hockey players and all female athletes to have yet another place to be skilled, if that’s where they need to be.”
All this results in a complete bunch of questions, which we’ll try to reply.
Hold it. Wasn’t there already a women’s pro hockey league?
Yes. What happened to it’s, well, complicated.
True skilled women’s hockey in North America – as in, where players are literally paid to play – has only been in existence for eight years. Before that, various semi-pro leagues and teams scuffled along within the U.S. and Canada, populated by college graduates with Olympic aspirations. Crowds were small, gate receipts meager. Players supplied their very own equipment and paid out of their pockets for ice time and other expenses.
In 2015, a former college player named Dani Rylan launched the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), the primary North American entity to pay its players. Salaries were modest, $10,000 to $25,000, and Rylan was sketchy concerning the funds, but not less than it was something.
The league struggled to search out sponsors and financial backing, and salaries dropped because the years went along. In 2018 several top NWHL players left for the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), which paid stipends moderately than salaries. When the CWHL folded in 2019, most top North American stars refused to play within the NWHL and formed the Skilled Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), a barnstorming outfit with one among its 4 training sites in Blaine.
Relations between the 2 entities remained strained even after Rylan quit as NWHL commissioner in 2020, the NWHL rebranded because the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) in 2021 and salaries rose. The PWHPA, backed by Walter, acquired the PHF earlier this yr.
What happened to the Minnesota Whitecaps?
Founded in 2004 by Jack Brodt and Dwayne Schmidgall to offer their daughters a team to play on after college, the Whitecaps – the oldest continually-operating semi-pro or pro club in North American women’s hockey – not exist.
Brodt sold the Whitecaps to the NWHL in 2018 when the club was admitted as an expansion team. (The NWHL owned all of the franchises on the time, though individuals later purchased the Whitecaps and others.) The Whitecaps won the Isobel Cup championship their first season, selling out every home game at TRIA (capability 1,200, with 500 season tickets) while becoming the primary NWHL team to show a profit.
The PWHL owns the rights to the names and logos of the seven PHF franchises, though up to now it’s shown no inclination to make use of any of them. Fans widely panned a listing of potential recent nicknames after they became public.
Technically, there’s still a likelihood league officials will relent and call the Minnesota franchise the Whitecaps, given the name’s history and positive name recognition. Hold all tickets, as they are saying on the racetrack.
What makes this league “skilled”?
Pay, for starters. The league says player salaries will range from $35,000 to $80,000.
Then, facilities.
Minnesota’s team recently moved right into a 23-stall dressing room at TRIA built specifically for them; no more lugging gear to and from their cars. Players get snacks before practice, a catered meal after, and access to TRIA’s off-ice weight training facility. There’s a full complement of coaches and support staff, all paid. USA Hockey provides this level of support for the U.S. National team during camps and Olympic years, but no previous league in North America ever did.
U.S. National Team veterans like Lee Stecklein, the previous Gophers defenseman from Roseville and a three-time Olympian, discover “skilled” by the available facilities, equipment and perks in addition to salaries.
“Once we all as a bunch were looking into what our ideal type of league could be, there have been a few things that all the time stood out, something we’ve all been lucky to do as a national team,” Stecklein said. “I feel that’s what we’re seeing already.
“In every itineration of girls’s hockey that has come before, we’ve had amazing staff and helpers, but they’d to do simply because they love hockey and love us. So to have them have the opportunity to do that and have or not it’s a profession as well is so really awesome.”
So who’s playing on this recent Minnesota team?
A lot of Minnesotans and/or U.S. National Team veterans. Besides Stecklein, the 23-player roster includes U.S. Olympians Kendall Coyne Schofield, Maddie Rooney, Nicole Hensley, Grace Zumwinkle and Kelly Pannek, together with U of Minnesota great and Patty Kazmaier Award winner Taylor Heise.
Former Whitecaps captain Sydney Brodt will start the season on injured reserve with a lower body injury sustained in training camp. One other Whitecaps fan favorite, Amanda Leveille, returns in goal.
Darwitz tabbed former Bethel University men’s and girls’s coach Charlie Burggraf, who coached Darwitz as a Gophers assistant within the early 2000s, as head coach. Darwitz had two stints as a Gophers assistant and coached Hamline to 2 Division III Frozen Fours, but felt she had an excessive amount of to do as GM to educate the team, too.
How good will this team be?
Put it this manner: When your third goalie is Rooney, the Minnesota-Duluth standout from Andover who backstopped the U.S. to Olympic gold in 2018, that claims rather a lot about your depth. On the league’s evaluation camp last week in Utica, N.Y., Minnesota won all three of its scrimmages in regulation. (Rules were just a little different; each scrimmage featured additional time and a shootout irrespective of the rating.)
Where will Minnesota play, and the way can we get tickets?
Minnesota is the one team slated to play home games in an NHL arena (the Xcel Energy Center). The league secured college or college-quality venues for the others.
Tickets are on sale here. Season tickets run from $612 to $204, with single games from $51 to $17. (Beware: These prices don’t include taxes and Ticketmaster fees.) The house opener, Jan. 6 vs. Montreal, begins a three-game homestand.
How does a team sell tickets and get people to follow with no nickname, no logo and only generic merchandise?
That’s business operations director Glen Andresen’s job.
“I actually think our wheelhouse might be to get in front of young girls, highschool hockey players, youth hockey players and girls hockey players,” he said. “My big thing might be to attach our team to those associations and teams across the state. That’s my big priority.
“(The Whitecaps) set an incredible model for us. I feel it’s going to be just personal connections. We’re going to have to succeed in directly to those teams and associations. We have now to think about creative ways to get teams and groups here, to herald as many kids as we are able to. We hope the on-ice product might be so great off the highest that we’ll get more kids coming to our games and more kids all in favour of hockey. That helps everybody.”