As the eight players from PWHL Montreal skated around the Bell Centre ice warming up alongside the members of the Montreal Canadiens at Sunday’s Skills Competition, two things stood out.
No, it wasn’t the fact that Marie-Philip Poulin received the loudest ovation as players stepped onto the ice. The first was Erin Ambrose and Cole Caufield just chatting and laughing. They looked like they were catching up, but Ambrose later confirmed they had never met before and were discussing their seasons and what it meant to play in Montreal. The second was Alex Newhook making a point to go up to every PWHL player and giving them a fist bump and chatting with them. Alex also attended two PWHL home games while out of the lineup injured.
In the past, the women’s hockey players being part of the skills competition would have felt like tokenism, and it’s possible that it wouldn’t have even been announced in advance, or as an afterthought. This time the players weren’t only announced the night before, after their game against Ottawa, but along with a link to buy tickets.
There’s no shortage of players on the Canadiens who understand what women’s hockey players have gone through or what the PWHL means. Emily Matheson (née Pfalzer) is a Olympic gold medalist and four-time World Champion. She played in the NWHL and PWHPA, and understands where those leagues were. Joshua Roy grew up 10 minutes from Poulin, and said the ability to be at the same place at the same time representing their region is a lot of fun. Abby Newhook represented Canada at the Under-18 level, co-captains her NCAA team, and is a likely future professional player. There are others, and you don’t have to have a personal connection to it to understand either.
There were several fans with PWHL jerseys in the Bell Centre. Much like when the NBA had Sabrina Ionescu battle Stephen Curry in a three-point shooting competition, or the NHL had the PWHL play a three-on-three game during their All-Star weekend, they weren’t there to simply provide visibility, but to attract WNBA or PWHL fans to the event. TV viewership spiked at both events when the women took to the court or ice, and frankly while some people may have never heard of the WNBA or PWHL before, it’s not like the sport needed a charity boost.
By the time the PWHL took to the ice at Scotiabank Arena during All-Star Thursday, the Montreal-Toronto PWHL game in that arena was already sold out. The final buzzer hadn’t even sounded in the “Battle on Bay Street” game before people started talk of the Bell Centre beating the attendance record.
It is striking how quickly the narrative has changed, even among the players themselves. On January 16, Poulin was asked about their appearance at the NHL All-Star Game and whether they can have fun.
“The reality is that we have to play hard. We can’t take it off. At the end of the day, people will always have opinions that if we don’t go hard, women’s hockey is not good,” Poulin said then. “For us, this game is still a showcase of what women’s hockey is capable of. We’re all conscious of that. Every chance that we have to go to an NHL All-Star Game, it will be fun but when we’re on the ice, we all know that people are watching women’s hockey and what it can be, what it can become, so we take it to heart and it’s important for us to show what women’s hockey is.”
On Sunday, her tone after the event was noticeably different. She was asked whether there was added stress or pressure being at the Bell Centre for the event.
“There’s always some stress. We’re at the Bell Centre in front of 20,000 people,” Poulin said. “But, I don’t know, today was fun. We felt that everyone was happy for us, happy that we were there, and it was cool.”
The difference is jarring. Compare what Poulin and the other women’s hockey players felt on Sunday, or even what they felt before the All-Star Game on February 1, to what Kendall Coyne Schofield felt in 2019. If Coyne Schofield didn’t put up a competitive time in the fastest skater event, or worse if she fell, people would have written off women’s hockey. It’s not right, but it’s reality.
During the relay race on Sunday, Poulin fell during her leg of the race. It took her almost 30 seconds to hit all four targets in accuracy shooting (the only women’s hockey event Poulin won was hardest shot. Despite her fall, her team won the relay race as Colin White lost the puck in the anchor leg). It didn’t matter. There is not one person who watched that thinking Poulin and the other PWHL players didn’t belong on that ice.
Less than two months since the PWHL’s first game, women’s hockey has become an attraction on its own. It took the Laval Rocket over four years to surpass 10,000 fans at a game at Place Bell, and the PWHL did it in three games. Games are regularly on TV, highlights are on sports shows, and there is a constant media presence that simply hasn’t been there with past leagues. PWHL players taking part on Sunday had team equipment staff transport and prepare their equipment at the Bell Centre for the event. It was a far cry from when players carried their own equipment in their personal vehicles.
It’s proving that the problem with women’s hockey in the past had nothing to do with the quality of the on-ice product but the visibility of the product. You could argue, and some would, that the success the league is having is despite the league making some key errors in jersey rollouts, merchandise availability, and the lack of team names and logos. PWHL Advisory Board member Stan Kasten has often said their priority was getting the hockey right. He was confident that getting the hockey right would be enough to attract fans.
While there’s still a lot of work to do, so far his confidence has paid off.
