“People would say, ‘Girls don’t play hockey. Girls don’t skate.’ I would say, ‘Watch this.’ “
– Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser, Canadian National team legend and Assistant GM, Toronto Maple Leafs
To say Dr. Wickenheiser knows a bit about hockey would be akin to saying Neil Armstrong knows a bit about the moon, as they were both pioneers in their space. But the doctor’s giant leap was to be the first female to play in men’s professional hockey outside of the goal. While she never made the NHL, she played in professional leagues in the Nordic countries and managed to score goals on the boys. Hayley backed up her “watch this” with some hockey worth watching…
The 2014 game above was the first time I’d seen Hayley play, as the rivalry between the U.S and Canada Women’s teams had reached a fever pitch after years of slugging it out to a point it was must watch TV. It was also the first women’s hickey game I’d ever seen, and the speed, accuracy, checking, and effort were all as thrilling as watching a great NHL game. I fell in love with the longstanding rivalry then, and it’s still one of the great sports rivalries out there a decade-plus later.
Which made it even more disappointing to miss a record-setting night in Denver last weekend for professional women’s hockey, as the PWHL sent two of their highly entertaining clubs to Ball Arena for a night that turned out to be the best-attended evening of professional women’s hockey in history. For the first time, a PWHL game saw over 14,000 fans in the stands in an arena that only seats 18,000 for hockey. The house was near-capacity, and rocking with hockey fans young and old, some of who got to dream a little by watching hockey heroes that looked a bit more like them.
The game didn’t disappoint, either, with the “visiting” Montreal Victoire and the “hometown” Minnesota Frost trading goals in the first and second periods before the Frost sent their foam-finger waving crowd into a frenzy with an early third period goal, and an insurance goal to put it away late. By games end, the crowd was enthusiastically chanting. “We want a team!”, and looking like they’d back it if it came.
Happily, the PWHL might just oblige. Their “Takeover Tour” just so happens to be making stops along the way of a few cities they’ve also identified as candidates for expansion. And while Denver will never have the number of teams a city like New York or Los Angeles might have, the breadth and diversity of their offerings for sports fans – especially in the 19th-or-so largest city in the US – speaks volumes about our passion as a sports town. The PWHL only has a half dozen teams currently in the league. Being a part of a possible expansion this early speaks those volumes at an even greater, uh… volume.
It’s just a part of a trend that has long been a part of Colorado tradition, when dreams of being a four-sport town turned into the ‘scourge” of being a two-sport burg for a little bit. Now it feels like Denver is on a short list right as any league starts taking flight. If professional curling ever takes flight (don’t make fun, USA Curling is playing a lot of contests), you can bet there may be a Queen City Curlers in the mix before long.
Which is not to make light of the hoped-for PWHL squad, nor the recently-added Denver team for the NWSL, which only brings that league’s total to a sweet sixteen. Denver is well known for supporting entertaining sporting events, and there aren’t many sports that aren’t tougher to play at altitude, which gives almost everyone a home-field advantage. Sorry, Rockies.
There is no timeline for the PWHL to announce when they might choose new spaces, but they’re hoping for a team or two to compete in this upcoming season, so it’s not as if we’ll grow old waiting to hear. The town that dreamt of becoming a three-sport town again may end up becoming a sixteen-sport town (totally making that number up) by the time a couple more leagues have given us a glance. Who could blame them? Check out the game highlights below, and tell me that wasn’t some entertaining hockey. We Want A Team!