Price is Right: Olympic stars would sell a unified women's pro hockey league
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While it most certainly has become cliche to tie a given sports championship to the inspiration of children playing in the driveway, please indulge me.
Because unlike the Raptors winning the NBA championship or Sidney Crosby hoisting the Stanley Cup, the Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team truly is inspiring girls, and that inspiration is still very much needed. My girls jumped for joy when I told them the game was last night. They equally yelled when I told them they had to go to bed before the third period.
There has âneverâ been more interest in a Canadian womenâs hockey game than there was last night. And that was for a game that started at 11 pm ET in the eastern time zone.
Never has it been more standard and ordinary to see people stating their plans for watching a womenâs hockey game. And the reason this is so important is that while all this is true, in order to make sure that ridiculous editorials on the womenâs game do not continue to be printed, the game does need to grow.
Youâre probably wondering how growing the game here helps Finland or Sweden, but the answer is clear. A unified pro league. A singular pro womenâs league here would help womenâs hockey worldwide in the same way that Bayern Munich has helped menâs soccer in Canada. It would allow a full time stage to exist, with jobs available to any who are qualified.
Canadians and Americans would be the majority, especially to start. But the NHL was at one time too. And the smattering of foreign players that are there, would give inspiration to the girls in their respective countries.
It would also raise the bar of the game, period. Go back and watch the 1998 Olympic gold medal game and youâll see a noticeably different level of hockey than the one played Wednesday night. Training has improved, there are pro players in the group now, the speed and strength is higher than it ever has been. That could become the norm in a pro league in short order. And I donât think anyone has any problem paying money to see that kind of hockey on the regular.
Donnie and Dhali ran a poll today and two-thirds of respondents said theyâd pay to support a womenâs league. And thanks to these Olympic tournaments, there are stars ready to sell. The WNBA took a while to reach true financial viability, but thereâs reason to believe that could be much shorter here, as long as the league isnât too ambitious. Start with six, to maybe eight teams. Expand much farther down the road.
If all that happens, and the investment is real, and the teams have true facilities. there could be a tangible change at the Olympic level as soon as 2026. Drop the puck.