Inside The Women’s game: Mailbag edition

As someone close to the PHF and Women’s hockey, I sometimes forget that people don’t know things about women’s hockey that I do, so I thought to rectify it by sending out a tweet asking for questions.

If you missed this time, I plan to make it a recurring thing. Let’s get to the questions with the preamble out of the way!

Question One comes from Cue’ The duck boats- When and where can we watch the PHF games?

Answer- As for when we really don’t know. It is still up in the air with expansion teams, but I know there will be at least 20 games, probably ending in March.
Where to watch the PHF is the easy part. In the United States, the PHF is available on ESPN+, In Canada on TSN direct, and internationally on Twitch. You can also watch the teams play live! The tickets for PHF games are a perfect price for some fantastic hockey.

Question Two- Do you think the Boston Pride are going to do a fun roster reveal?
Answer- Unfortunately, I don’t think so. Based on what they did last season, I’m expecting, like, boom, here’s the roster. The graphic will probably set the tone for the season’s graphics.

Question Three- With their current roster, do you think the Whale have what it takes to finally capture Izzy and break up the Pride dynasty.

Answer- I think the Whale has a real fighting chance to beat the Pride for Izzy. The Whale have made some really good additions from the college world on the back end. I think this boils down to whether the Whale will keep up their scoring and if Abby Ives puts up another all-star performance. The Pride is the other question. Who is staying on the team after last season? It depends on who is coming back from the two-time Isobel cup winning team. The Pride are the team to beat this season.

Question four- What are some Isobel Cup playoff matchups that you want to see?

Answer- I enjoyed the Whale-Pride match-up from last season, and I want more of that. I think the battle of New England view could be interesting. Another Match-up that I would like to see is Pride vs. Whitecaps. The gift that keeps on giving is this Minnesota-Boston rivalry. There is so much history between these two teams, and I just can’t wait to see it again.

Question Five- What cities do you think the PHF should expand to?

Answer: The prevailing idea is that the PHF will expand next to Montreal and an unnamed American city. I like the Montreal idea, and it’s a perfect place for the PHF to go. I think that Milwaukee, Wisconsin, would be great. Milwaukee has an AHL team, and I believe there could be some really fun partnerships between them and the PHF team. Maybe an AHL/PHF double header?

Some other obvious places could be Chicago, anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania, and hear me out on this one, Washington DC.

There are two other cities I would love to see the PHF go to but probably won’t go for a while since travel is a consideration are Seattle and Vancouver. Just think about the jerseys.

Question Six- What do you think the league needs to expand to more states? Do you think there needs to be a PHF version of the AHL?

Answer: I think that the league just needs more time and a little more funding to expand to more states. I believe that time is probably the most important part. The league just needs to grow more, and the only way to do that is with time.

I don’t think that the PHF as it needs a version of the AHL. Would that be nice? Yes, it would. Right now, there just isn’t enough infrastructure for it. In North America, there is currently one other professional women’s hockey league, the PWHPA, and even more leagues in Europe, with the SDHL in Sweden and the Naisten Liiga in Finland. There is also the EWHL or European Women’s Hockey League. There is even a professional women’s hockey league in Australia, of all places. This all boils down to the fact that many people are very North America-centric.

Question Seven- Who or what got you into women’s hockey for the first time?

Answer: A personal one this time, but I am happy to answer. I got into Women’s hockey because a bunch of my friends did. We watched some games replay over covid, and I fell in love with this sport. If I remember correctly, the first PHF game I watched was the outdoor game between the Buffalo Beauts and the Metropolitan Riveters. I like to joke that I like Women’s hockey because I get to be pretentious about hockey.

Question Eight- Do you think they’ll reach a point where they can give multi-year contracts? Also, why do they list players as forward instead of C/LW/RW?

Answer: The first question is easy to answer; the PHF already makes multi-year contracts! It is only a two-year contract, but this will probably change in the near future.

As for the second part, I can only speculate. In Women’s hockey, even from high school, many girls will play all the positions except goalie, but they might have a favorite between forward and defense. This trend continues throughout college, where the players will play wherever they can. Another reason is the position called rover. Why have I never heard of this, I hear you ask? Well, gentle reader, that is because the rover has fallen out of favor except in Women’s Hockey. The rover plays all over the ice, usually taking the role of a forward. The rover is an all-purpose player.

I hope this helped to answer some of your women’s hockey questions. If this didn’t, I am sure there will be another opportunity to ask!