1- Congratulations to Emma Nuutinen, a rising senior at Mercyhurst, who just won a historic silver medal with Team Finland at the Women's World Championships. Emma has been a fixture on the Finnish team for years, and lead Mercyhurst in points this past season with 28 points in 30 games, coming off her Olympic bronze medal performance in 2018. The silver medal was certainly controversial, given the disallowed goal, and you can see the emotion in the team picture below.
Jääkiekkoliitto palkitsee #Naisleijonat historiallisesta MM-saavutuksesta kultabonuksin: https://t.co/KWM0vkOYqR #MM2019 #Espoo2019 #MMkotikisat #MMkisat #Leijonat #WomensWorlds pic.twitter.com/YdbkRLpaBz— Leijonat (@leijonat) April 18, 2019
2- Congratulations and good luck to Vilma Tanskanen, who graduates from Mercyhurst this spring. Vilma recently signed with Linkoping, one of 10 pro teams in the Swedish Women's Hockey League (referred to as the SWHL or SDHL). Tanksanen finished her college career with 57 points in 129 games. She played her first two seasons at UND, before transferring to Mercyhurst. A big strong forward with a great shot, Vilma was the first alternate for Finland at the most recent Olympics. Hopefully her game continues to develop at the pro level and we see her on a team Finland roster once again.
I am happy to announce that I am going to continue my hockey career in the SDHL with @Lhcdam 🏒 I am so excited for this opportunity and even more excited to play with my buddy @EveliinaSuonpaa again— Vilma Tanskanen (@TanskanenVilma) April 19, 2019
Thank you Mercyhurst, UND, and all the people who have helped me along the way pic.twitter.com/jeiZytsSf7
3- The Ice Garden published a piece on Mercyhurst alum Jess Jones' 2016-2017 season with the Brampton Thunder, when she put up 37 points, tying Marie-Philip Poulin in scoring and winning the Angela James Bowl. Jones said in regards to that special season: “[One] game that stood out most to me was the All-Star Game at the ACC. I was able to share the ice with the league’s best and I was fortunate enough to score a hat trick...having all my friends and family there to watch was really special.”
Jess Jones played at Mercyhurst from 2008 to 2012, finishing with 154 points, 7th on the all time scoring leaders at Mercyhurst.
4- Tangentially related to Jess Jones, if you haven't seen the Markham Thunder twitter account thread about the birthday party for Megan Bozek's dog Boone, do yourself a favor and click on through. You will smile! Or, just watch this one short vid from the thread of Jones trying to supervise. Her dog Laker was a party guest.
And here is @jones22__ providing adult supervision. We couldn’t have the party get too wild pic.twitter.com/njYHdK7W7r— Markham Thunder 🌩 (@ThunderCWHL) January 11, 2019
5- Former Mercyhurst assistant coach Delaney Collins made news in March when she was the Head Coach of Team BC at the Canada Winter Games. The team won bronze, the first time they won at a medal since 1991. Hockey Canada published this story about the gold, silver, and bronze winning coaches. I liked this quote from Collins:
“We definitely want girls that are hard-working and mentally are able to show a lot of compassion for themselves,” Collins says. “At the end of the day, it is a game of mistakes. So, how do you respond after making a mistake? We are looking for athletes who are open to learning and are not too critical about the mistakes in the game.”
Collins is a former Canada National Team member, and coached at Mercyhurst from 2011 - 2016.
6 - Collins was also a guest on the Champion Minded podcast recently. It's worth a listen if you are interested in coaching or leadership. I often lament the fact that women's hockey is so far behind women's basketball in terms of infrastructure. It's rare to get to hear a women's hockey coach speak at length about topics relevant to us fans, so this was really cool.
7- Ending on a bit of a sad note. If you are a CWHL fan, you probably saw yesterday that the CWHL is auctioning off its assets, including its trophies. I am praying that someone with money can buy the trophies and get them in the Hall of Fame where they belong.
The sadness is not just about hockey. It is about the pain of witnessing how the history of the accomplishments of women are vulnerable to being erased, because we as a society do not value and support women (and all marginalized people) to the extent we are worthy. There is value in knowing what the women who came before us did, value in documenting their struggles and successes. It is a shame to be forever calling people pioneers, because we haven't properly documented, shared, and preserved the stories of those who have achieved. At some point we must learn, and must stop doing this.
I want to share a picture my sister sent me just last week. She found this in her detached garage, damaged beyond being salvageable, but I am grateful for the digital image. The woman that used to live in the house my sister now lives in was named Jean Murray, and she was the head mistress at a school in Newfoundland called Bishop Spencer, I'm not sure when exactly. Here is a picture of their girls hockey team, dated 1926:
I look at this picture and think about a book report I wrote in the fifth grade about Howie Morenz and a couple other NHL players, because I had a book that told their story. Why was their no book about these women, or women like them? I was not special for playing hockey in the nineties, girls and women had played for decades. I was no pioneer, I was just like those other girls - Helen, Esther, Joan, Gertrude, Ruth, Ethel, Kathleen, Edith, Caroline, and the lady who's first name I can't read, so I will call Bursell. It gets to a point where it is just crushing that the stories of only specific people get told, and it is on us who care, to change it.
Bit of a coincidence, but Mercyhurst was founded the same year this picture was taken, in 1926, by the Sisters of Mercy. The original mission of the school was to educate poor women, people who by virtue of their sex and social class were deemed less worthy by society at the time. I assume the nuns were not rich, but they were powerful just the same, and their work effected change. I think I can learn from that.
There is a narrative in our culture that women do not show up for each other, do not support each other. It's not true; we have always shown up for each other, in fact we have done so against all odds. But the amount of work to be done is great, and we must continue to show up for each other, to teach each new generation that this is what we do, what we've always done. We are learning a lot of painful lessons with the demise of the CWHL - whatever comes next, let's show up for them. Let's not go through this again.
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