Yet Another Slow Moving Trainwreck: U18 Girls Worlds Cancelled

 Well, the U18 Girls World Championship was cancelled for the second year in a row. Several other tourneys were cancelled too, though none other at the top level of IIHF competition. At least at first. Covid eventually  took down the U20 Men's World Juniors too.

What. A. Mess.

Thousands of words have been written about the cancellation of the U18 Girls and it's hard to say anything that hasn't already been said. I think the thing that gets me the most is that it feels like the IIHF just doesn't get that the way girls and womens hockey fans feel about our iteration of the game is the exact same way that boys and mens hockey fans feel about that iteration of the game. Full stop.

It should not be surprising that if the girls tourney gets cancelled repeatedly, you will get absolutely dragged by fans, leading to a petition with over 80,000 signatures calling for the tournament to postponed to a safe time, not cancelled completely. And eventually, the media ARE going to get involved and start talking about it too, furthering the bad look to the IIHF.

So here we are.  I'm completely confused why the IIHF published the statement they did defending the decision. It was like they took the worst part of the IIHF interview they did with president Luc Tardif and then blasted that piece of it on Twitter. Why on earth?

It's not great because it demonstrates some of the issues within the growth of hockey, but USA Hockey may step in and save the U18 tourney, hosting in 2022 rather than 2023. The Swedes aren't interested in rescheduling apparently which is also not a good look. If USA Hockey can step in and save it, great, but I have to think USA Hockey and Hockey Canada get tired of basically holding up the structure of women's hockey. Good for them though; in the previous debacle when politician Iain Rankin took down the Women's Worlds (I know, I know, he was trying to do what was right) Hockey Canada saved the day by moving it to Calgary. It doesn't go unnoticed.

But like I say, I just wish the hockey world understood how much women's fans love our game. Seeing the reaction after covid took down the men's tourney...it was like looking in a mirror! It sucks to have your stuff canceled, eh? 

But as an aside, in their defense of cancelling the U18 girls, IIHF did share some things they've been up to for girls and women's hockey. Now, why this isn't widely promoted in the first place instead of shared when in crisis mode, I'm not sure. But here are a few good things: I'm not giving cookies, because some of this just rights long standing wrongs, but I'm also happy to read about this. 

1- the Senior Women's World Championship is going to be played annually now, no longer skipping the Olympic year. GREAT. Can't wait to watch when Denmark hosts in 2022 starting August 26.

2- The IIHF is going to push to expand the Olympic tourney to 12 teams 

3- IIHF has tripled Olympic support, including prize money

4- IIHF Women's Committee will have one of biggest budgets of all committees

Tardif was the founding president of the French Ice Hockey Federation (2006) and says he was instrumental in providing support to women's hockey there. I wouldn't know if he was or wasn't. I do know that France is producing some badass women's hockey players like Chloe Aurard who is a senior forward at #3 Northeastern University.

So....I hate what the IIHF did last week cancelling a top level girl tourney and not the boys (at first). I think they were rightly shredded for that, and I love the women's hockey world for fighting back. I wish the IIHF understood how much people love the women's game, and sure hope this tourney eventually gets played.

But Tardif asked to be judged at the end of the story, not the middle. I will grant him that, perhaps foolishly, but nonetheless. He's a few months into a job, he's done some good things for girls hockey, done one crappy thing that he still has a chance to fix, and of course there is a global pandemic even if we are all tired of it. 

https://www.iihf.com/en/news/31418/addressing_tournament_cancellations

Women’s Hockey Hat Trick

I can’t believe it but the Women’s World Championships got canceled. It turns out a Covid zero zone is not the best place for a women’s hockey tourney. Because cases spiked at the wrong time, and poof there went the tourney. Definitely frustrating to see people finger wag at people about health first, and taking a “screw you world, we don’t want you in our province stance.... “ I mean yes, health first, but why did you ever agree to host the world if it turns out you have a Covid zero policy, and only like cheering for hockey that happens elsewhere? God the adversaries women’s hockey ends up with. Who would have thought that this go round it would be the newly minted premier of Nova Scotia who derails things? But yes, health first, I just REALLY would like to watch some women’s hockey at some point.

The players were devastated, understandably. IIHF took a lot of heat, Iain Rankin took some heat, Hockey Canada somehow came through pretty unscathed in the court of public opinion, but they now have to find a new location somewhere in Canada at the end of August. In theory (oh God) by August there should be lots of safe places to host the tourney. Canada will be swimming in vaccine by then hopefully and all vaxxed up and ready to cheer in person. Have to abandon Halifax at this point; they’ve deferred or cancelled 3 times (including last year, understandably). So that’s unfortunate but it is what it is. At least we’re getting a tourney, albeit an end of summer one.

But that’s not all your getting. I also figured out what to call my links posts: Women’s Hockey Hat Trick. What do you think? Pretty good eh? Here’s a hat trick of links to read and listen to this week:

Read:

IIHF - New dates for women’s worlds

The tourney will now be played August 20 -31, 2021, somewhere in Canada, lol.

Ice Garden - Q&A With Team Canada’s Jill Saulnier

Saulnier posted one of the first and very best reactions to the canceling, from players. Gabriella Fundaro caught up with her a week later to check in some more.

Listen:

On the Bus With Cammi & AJ - Ellen Weinberg Hughes

I can’t tell you how much I love that former stars in women’s hockey are becoming more visible in the sport. The ‘99er’s are visible, so too should be hockey’s 98’s. Weinberg Hughes is of course a famous hockey mom, but before that she was a Team USA hockey player and won a silver medal at World’s in 1992. She shared stories about playing hockey in Dallas growing up, being recruited for soccer and choosing a school with hockey too (UNH) and walking on to the hockey team. She’s a great story teller, and moms and hockey moms will love what she has to say. Give it a listen!

Remember Women's Hockey Wednesday?

 A few years back there were a couple of bloggers by the screen name of Nafio and Annie who ran a weekly feature on Pension Plan Puppets called Women's Hockey Wednesday. They'd opine about something for a few paragraphs, then share links to all things women's hockey from the past week. It was integral to me becoming a practicing women's hockey fan. I mean I was raised on hockey, but like so many women's players, when the playing days were done, that was the end, or so I thought. Today I love being a women's hockey fan. Just like the sport needs players, coaches, refs, media, sponsors and more....it also needs fans, just like me. And fans need coverage to consume. 

After many years, Nafio and Annie stepped away from WHW, and nothing has ever really replaced it. I miss it. I remember when I discovered it, there was already more than a year of WHW archives, and I just worked my way through months of links. It's where I learned about Fran Rider and got introduced to the history of women's hockey in Ontario. And so much more. 

What I loved more than anything about WHW was the message it sent about Women's Hockey: You Matter. Women's hockey stories matter. People are writing them, if not on a dedicated women's hockey site, scattered all over the internet, but writing them none the less. Women's hockey was worthy of having those stories rounded up and linked to, and celebrated. I went back to Pension Plan Puppets yesterday to see if WHW had ever been reincarnated. Not yet.

I'm sure you can tell where this is going. I want to share some links with you! 

But first, on the topic of people mattering. You know who matters? The US Women's National Team. Last week on the first day of camp before 2021 Worlds their head coach resigned. The tl;dr version is that it appears he didn't want to deal with stringent Covid protocols required with coaching at Worlds this year, and so he resigned. Resigning in and of itself is fine, it's a thing that happens. People despise Covid protocols and are so over this global pandemic. Also a thing. But resigning 3 weeks before the tourney? I mean really. 

How would you feel as a player if your coach walked away from you like that? What is the message that is being sent?

The World Championships is Women's Hockey's Stanley Cup. NHL coaches aren't walking away from Stanley Cup contenders 3 weeks before playoffs. Why? Because they get it, and they are all in, and will do anything to help the team win. USA Hockey needs to find the USWNT a coach who values them. The team matters, they are special for what they represent in women's hockey, and they deserve better.

Some links:

Read:

Shattuck St. Mary's is adding a 2nd U19 Girls Prep team, the only school in the country to have two U19 teams. They won their first National Championship in 2005, same year as USA won its first World Championship. Neither SSM or the USWNT has slowed down since. To learn about women's hockey, is to learn about this little hockey school.

https://www.s-sm.org/live/news/1357-shattuck-st-marys-school-continues-advancing-girls

Listen:

Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson on "On the Bus with Cammi and AJ." Lamoureux, Granato, and Mleckzo have a great chat about many topics, including the Lamoureux twins' new book, "Dare to Make History: Chasing a Dream and Fighting for Equity." 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jocelyne-lamoureux-davidson-former-member-us-national/id1546162389?i=1000512026263

Watch:

Marie-Philip Poulin on Top of Her Game, with Tara Slone. Poulin talks about making her way in hockey as a child, and who she plays for now. (about 15 mins)

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/video/marie-philip-poulin-inspiring-future-generations-womens-hockey-players/

Natalie Spooner on Top of Her Game, with Tara Slone. Spooner is so comfortable in front of the camera. Great energy. (about 15 mins)

 https://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/video/natalie-spooner-team-canada-inspiring-next-generation/

St. Louis is Next Stop on the PWHPA Secret Dream Gap Tour

 On Sunday and Monday of this week the PWHPA will have a Dream Gap Tour stop in St. Louis. Great news is that Sunday will be streamed, and Monday will be properly broadcast on NBCSN.

I'll watch Monday night's game for sure. I'm curious to see what the level of play is. The teams are USWNT heavy, and with World's less than a month away staying healthy needs to be of utmost priority for the players, but they still need to be ready to go and not picking up bad habits by holding back. 

The teams are light on defenders, four on one roster and five on the other. Particularly in penalty killing scenarios (especially if defender is in the box), this is pretty light. I was curious if the rosters for D had changed at all compared to the last Secret Dream Gap Tour stop, since I had heard Kacey Bellamy was added to the Women's Sports Foundation team roster. However, when I looked at the rosters on the PWHPA site, they were the same as they'd been presented for previous showcases. So I'm sure Bellamy will be added, but not sure of any other changes. 

So as far as defense, here's what we are looking at (4 and 6 now):

Women's Sports Foundation: Jincy Dunne, Megan Keller, Codie Cross, Jacquie Greco, Kali Flanagan, Kacey Bellamy

adidas: Demi Crossman, Savannah Harmon, Margo Lund, Lee Stecklein

...ha. Effing Covid, I just went to twitter to confirm Bellamy is on WSF team and there's a postponement notice posted just now on PW's twitter. I'm sure the mature response from me is platitudes about health and safety and YES, 100%. But also....this really sucks. What a brutal year it's been. Women's games are rare events at the highest level. Even rarer that they get on tv. Even rarer still in Covid times. Post graduate players have not played a tournament since 2019. I won't believe that Worlds is real until the Championship is handed out.

But in the spirit of holding onto optimism, I underlined the World Championship rostered defenders above. In addition to the underlined above, the US will take Caroline Harvey, Cayla Barnes, Megan Bozek and Natalie Buchbinder, for a total of 8 defenders. Fingers crossed the tourney happens.

On Penn State not making the NCAA Tournament

In the past week there has been a lot said and written about 2 of the at large selections for the NCAA Tournament in women's ice hockey. In this post, I will focus on the Penn State vs Providence comparison. 

One of the arguments against Penn State has been that the CHA is not magically better this year, and does not all of a sudden deserve two bids. Robert Morris grabbed the CHA auto bid with an upset in the conference tourney. The question then becomes, is Penn State worthy of an at large bid? The question is not, is the CHA worthy of two bids?

Fans argue that Hockey East is stronger than the CHA. While I agree that on average Hockey East is stronger than the CHA, that's not the question. The question is, in a Providence vs Penn State comparison, who meets more of the stated criteria? Ultimately the committee felt Providence did. 

If we look strictly at criteria below, as printed in the Championship Manual, I try to do an analysis of who meets each criteria. I'm not sure how the committee does this, but am trying to make sense of it.

The criteria to determine selections are as follows (in no particular order):

Won/Loss Record - Penn State wins point

Strength of Schedule - Providence wins point

Head to Head Results (when available) - na

Results versus Common Opponents - na

Quality Wins - I can't find definition of this (and suspect it's full of math I don't want to learn how to do), but likely Providence gets this point considering 2 wins over BC. Penn State did not get the chance to earn any quality wins due to their schedule not containing any games against teams in the top 10. It's very unfortunate if this is what it came down to, but it also feels unfair to not give Providence credit for their wins. If the committee took the stance they didn't want to disregard the Providence quality wins, it also seems they took the stance they COULD disregard the head to head wins of Minnesota over UMD. This seems inconsistent. If the committee wants to strictly go by criteria in one comparison, they open themselves to criticism by being subjective in another. I included subjective arguments for Penn State, further in this post.

Home / Away Weighting - not considered by me

Eligibility and Availability of Student Athletes - na

Penn State had the better Won/Loss Record, while Providence had a stronger strength of schedule. The only other relevant criteria is Quality Wins. I wonder if that's the point that Providence got that Penn State didn't. Since Penn State may not have got the chance to earn quality wins, when BC did, it feels a bit unfair but maybe this is the best the committee could do. 

I didn't consider Home/Away weighting because that's getting pretty nitty gritty and I can't believe the analysis came down to that. Hopefully eventually an explanation will come from the committee, and hopefully the criteria are consistently applied to both the scenario above, and the Minnesota UMD scenario.

Two final points: 

It's not a criteria for NCAA Tournament Selection, but Penn State versus Providence comparison of previous years reveals that Penn State has been .500 against Hockey East in recent years, and has a winning record versus Providence specifically. Providence has a losing record against Penn State, and has been .500 against CHA in recent years. For the purpose of this year's NCAA Tournament it's a moot point, but for the purposes of speaking factually about the accomplishments of Penn State and the CHA versus Providence, it's relevant. It is disingenuous for knowledgeable college hockey fans to speak of a team as though it is nothing more or less than the general reputation of its league. There's nuance that should be considered, and the committee could have chose to do that.

If the pairwise existed this year, it's entirely possible that Penn State would have earned an at large bid. I looked at Mercyhurst’s results the last time they earned an at large bid. It was 2014 and their results were eerily similar to what Penn State did this year, including a late season tie to Lindenwood and getting knocked out of CHA tourney by RIT. Reg season results were 15-3-2 (Penn State was 16-2-2 this year) and non conference was 7-5 (na this year). Mercyhurst made the tourney as an at large on strength of their pairwise. Of course their were 3 auto bids then, not 4, but also there was more teams because everyone was playing. So assuming there was a pairwise this year and assuming Coach Kampersal hadn’t loaded up Penn State's schedule with six games against best WCHA teams...Penn State really might have made the tourney as an at large based on math or if not they would have been very close.

PWHPA to be broadcast on NHL Network and Sportsnet

The PWHPA announced today that their Sunday game at Madison Square Garden will be broadcast on NHL Network and Sportsnet. This is great news, and also my cue to subscribe to NHL Network again. I finally let it lapse last March, when the World Championships were cancelled, and it was apparent there would be no women's hockey for a while. The NHL Network has broadcast several women's games the past few years, and hopefully will expand on this in the future. Seeing a PW game on the slate is a great sign.

With today's announcement we are now on the eve of a lot of great hockey which will be broadcast. PW will be broadcast this weekend (Feb 28) as mentioned above. Next weekend when they do a showcase in Chicago, they will be on NBC Sportsnet. That one will be history making, as it's the first time they will be broadcast on Network tv in the US.

College hockey conference tourneys start this weekend and wrap up next weekend, and of course college hockey all has pretty decent streams. This leads us right into the National Championship, a two weekend tourney, the 2nd of which will (I assume) be broadcast on Big Ten Network as in years past. And THEN, Worlds. So we've got a good stretch here on tv, after some barren times.

Last February the Rivalry Series wrapped up in Anaheim at Honda Center in front of a history making crowd. Those darn Americans won in OT AGAIN, and while I love the drama of the rivalry, I'm always looking for my Canadian girls to win against America. But February 2020, that's a long time ago. Can't wait to watch on Sunday.

The rosters are mostly American players, or at the very least, players who are training in the US. Covid travel complications of course. It's Minnesota's Hub vs New Hampshire's Hub. Rosters are on the PW website, but I think the Minnesota roster has more offensive fire power for sure. Cameranesi, Knight, Brandt, Pankowski and Roque on Minnesota have that roster looking strong. Minnesota goalies are both Olympians - Rooney and Hensley. Total of 17 on the roster, 15 skaters.

Over on New Hampshire, well their roster is also amazing, but I don't think it matches Minnesota in scoring power. They also have 17 on the roster, 15 skaters. The real excitement over there is their defenders. Jincy Dunne graduated from Ohio State just last year, and on her last collegiate play of her career sprung an Ohio State forward on a rush in OT that win them their first ever WCHA Tourney Championship. I've always wanted to see Dunne on the ice with Olympians and looking at who she'll have to defend against in the Minnesota PW squad should give us a great look. Luckily she'll also have Megan Keller on her team to defend against Minnesota. New Hampshire has Alex Cavallini in net as well as Katie Burt. 

So Burt is the only non Olympian goalie in this mix. She's the young kid trying to oust a Hensley or a Cavallini I suppose, which there are no guarantees of, plus Aerin Frankel in college is trying to make that USA squad too, and Frankel is absolutely crushing it, recently posting 6 consecutive shutouts. So Burt is going to need some playing time. The question is if the Sunday night game is to be televised, are they going to share time for the goalies, or treat like a real game. My guess is the Saturday night, they give some playing time to all four goalies, but come Sunday, unless something wild happens in Saturday's game, we'll see Rooney vs Cavallini. Rooney played in the 2018 Olympic gold medal game of course, and Cavallini played most of the 2019 Worlds and also looked amazing, helping USA win gold. 

All of this PW stuff is against the backdrop of their pursuit of a viable league, but we also know every time these athletes step on the ice it's a tryout for their respective National Teams. With so few games for some of these women in the past almost two years now I don't really know what to expect in terms of sustained crispness and cohesion especially at 5 on 5. It will be good hockey I have no doubt, but it won't be near Olympic level I don't think. Nonetheless, the PW on NHL Network and Sportsnet will be passionate, quality hockey, and a welcome sight to women's hockey fans. 

Back into it

I drifted away from sports fandom in the past 12 months. For starters there was nothing really happening in women's sports, just one cancellation after another. And the pandemic has simultaneously left us with nothing to do, and yet also made us so busy what with the inefficiencies of working, parenting, and helping a child with school at the same time. 

It's funny, when I leave something for a while, I forget how much I love it. To return to the sport, even as a fan, is to be reminded of how much I enjoy it. 

The NW bubble was announced, and I thought yes I'll watch that, stream it on Twitch and put it on the tv. The game I watched was the Toronto Minnesota one, Saturday night. It felt like I was watching Hockey Night in Canada in a way. Lindsay Eastwood, who I used to watch on Syracuse and who had victimized my Lakers too many times was especially fun to watch. Her and Grant-Mentis were great together on the PP, leading to Grant-Mentis' first goal of the night. Every time Toronto scored, Minnesota would answer. Toronto would then grab the lead back and so on. I thought for sure the game was headed to OT, but Grant-Mentis scored again to win it with about thirty seconds left. She came up with a puck just inside the offensive blue line, walked around one defender and when the whole building was thinking pass, Grant-Mentis was thinking, let's just end this, and shot. What a game.

The game ended, Grant-Mentis a hero, the Toronto Six looking like potential future Isobel Cup winners. I turned the tv off, abandoned the mess of wrestling action figures my son had dug out while we played during the game and put him to bed. I sat down at my computer and started to work, (I feel like I should explain working on a Saturday night, but you probably get it, it's the pandemic lifestyle basically) And while I worked, for the first time in a year, I turned on a hockey podcast, a Canadian one, a big budget one with kickass music at the end that gets you pumped, or keeps you pumped, if you already are. Women's hockey is back, and so am I.

Here's Lindsay Eastwood scoring the Six's first ever goal. The season's on pause, naturally, but the Six are full of promise and the NW is planning on finishing the season, so who knows where this might lead.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/video/lindsay-eastwood-scores-first-goal-toronto-six-history/