Can you give me a crash course in the NWHL? I'm thinking of checking it out, especially since there's a free worldwide livestream.
Ok so the NWHL is so cool and amazing and I can’t even properly verbalize how excited I am about it.
First of all, the full season schedule can be found here. And their twitter can be found here.
For the inaugural season, there are four teams.
NY Riveters - Brooklyn, NYCT Whales - Stamford, CTBuffalo Beauts - Buffalo, NYBoston Pride - Boston, MA
If you follow the USWNT (the hockey one haha) when they compete in the Olympics, here’s a breakdown of the bigger names + int’l players being allocated:
Riveters - Nana Fujimoto (Japan)Beauts - Meghan Duggan, Megan BozekWhales - Molly Engstrom, Yekaterina Smolentseva (RUS), Kelli StackPride - Zoe Hickel, Briana Decker, Kacey Bellamy, and Hilary Knight
There’s also a bunch of big names from major hockey schools in the Midwest.
Something really cool and amazing about the NWHL is that they’re drafting a lot of players with a year left in their collegiate careers so that they have time to get jobs and homes and social circles in their drafted city. Since the salary cap is very very low, this allows them to be able to play but not be stranded in new cities. You can read more about that here. That article also has a ton of stuff about the league and why it came into existence.
They’re also paying their players, which is absolutely incredible. There were some pictures posted the other day of players receiving their first ever paychecks for playing hockey and I teared up. And there were pictures of the players with #TBT to when “professional hockey was just a dream” which you can find from the NWHL’s tweets on Oct 8.
Also teams like the Breakers and Sky Blue have been showing major support for the league, showing the kind of cross sport promotion that women’s sports need.
The puck drops on this history making league tomorrow! Both the Rivs v. Whales (1:30 PM ET) and the Pride v. Beauts (3:30 PM ET) can be watched here!
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