This Month, the puck drops on the inaugural season of the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL). The new league based in the U.S. features four teams: the Buffalo Beauts, the Boston Pride, the Connecticut Whale, and the New York Riveters.
The league is currently in its preseason exhibition stage, which opened Sept. 25 with a game between the Beauts and Mercyhurst College Lakers. The regular season starts Oct. 11 on a night that will see the Boston Pride take on the Buffalo Beauts, while Connecticut will face off against New York. The season will run until February 2016, with playoffs set to begin in March.
Officially announced in April of this year, the upstart NWHL comes amid growing popularity of women’s hockey. The immensely popular 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia highlighted the surge of interest when the women’s gold medal final between Canada and the U.S. was one of the most watched events.
The new league is also the first professional paid women’s hockey league in North America. Commissioner Dani Rylan originally planned to expand the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) into New York but with sponsorship deals and funding from the charitable NWHL Foundation, she was able to start a new league with four founding teams.
Unlike in the CWHL, all players in the NWHL will be paid salaries, with teams providing equipment and covering travel expenses. Each team has a salary cap of US$270,000 for 18 players.
“We’re thrilled to be launching the first-ever paid professional women’s hockey league and creating a platform for these talented women,” Rylan said in a press release. “We look forward to helping grow the sport for the best players in the world, and giving these women a place to shine.”
Tatiana Rafter of the Buffalo Beauts is one of those players. The Winnipeg native previously played for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, scoring 116 points in five seasons. Her breakout year came in the 2013-14 season when she led the Canada West Conference in goals, scoring 20 and assisting 18.
Other big names in the league include Meghan Duggan, who captained the U.S. Women’s National Team to a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Formerly a forward for the CWHL’s Boston Blades, Duggan will suit up for the Buffalo Beauts this season.
Also in the new league is Nana Fujimoto, who won the MVP award as the goaltender for Japan in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. She will be goaltending for the New York Riveters.
A draft was held this June in Boston which saw twenty players drafted by the four teams, with Alex Carpenter of Boston College picked first overall, while most players signed as free agents.
Currently, games are only available live and on local networks in the four teams’ home cities, but talks of a possible network deal and streaming services for next year’s season are currently underway.
