Monday, April 19, 2021

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/

Friday, April 9, 2021

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.