Another look at playing conditions in the NWHL (with player names attached).

Mentioned in this story:

Few players speak publicly about their experiences in the NWHL due to a non-disparagement clause in their contracts, an obvious attempt to limit negative publicity. (This clause has been removed from NWHL contracts).

Lea-Kristine Demers was not paid a single penny for the four games she played in the NWHL (to be fair, this was due to student-visa issues)

Vanessa Gagnon was also not paid for her time in the NWHL. She was told her expenses (such as travel) would be reimbursed, but they were not. When she was injured in her third game, she only had insurance due to another employer. 

At the end of the league’s first season, allegations of unpaid amounts to Bauer surfaced. The equipment supplier has not been a partner of the league since then.

In the 2018/209 season, the ice in the arena the Pride practiced in was so poor you could see the cement through it.

Also in the 2018/2019 season, the Pride did not have access to a locker room for most of the season. Players also did not have bathroom access after putting on their skates and had to urinate in a trash can if they needed to relieve themselves.

At the Whale arena, change rooms were so small that the team had to be divided into two rooms. 

Players noiced immense disparity between the “rich” teams (such as the Beauts, owned by the Pegula family at the time) and the poorest (league-owned teams). The Pride are now owned by private investors, which has greatly improved conditions for players. The new Toronto team will be built on the same model. This will likely lead to a widening gap between the privately owned teams and the league-owned teams. 

In 2016, Ann-Renee Desbiens was drafted into the NWHL without even being aware she was eligible for the draft. She didn’t even get an email or call about it. 

The NWHL cut player wages by 38% without notice in 2016

Haley Skarupa refused to assume the cost of a plane trip imposed by her team after a bus trip was canceled on short notice. 

Haley Skarupa told La Presse that she would rather not play hockey at all than play in the NWHL. She comments that players were treated better in minor hockey. 

TORONTO – A year after the barnstorming “Dream Gap Tour” began, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) is set to announce a new structure for the 2020-21 season. Based on feedback provided by the PWHPA membership, a new regional structure will be implemented that aims to improve the player experience and continue to make strides towards building a professional environment for the players.

The PWHPA will consist of five regional training hubs located in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal in Canada, and New Hampshire and Minnesota in the United States. The regions will aim to provide players with improved access to resources such as full-time dressing rooms, access to strength and conditioning facilities, support staff and coaches.

“We listened to our players from last season, and the feedback was very consistent in ways that we could improve the PWHPA experience,” Jayna Hefford, PWHPA Operations Consultant, said. “It was a priority for us to increase the level of commitment and to provide additional resources for our athletes to develop and perform at the highest level. There is still an opportunity for players to be a part of the PWHPA, even if they don’t reside in an ‘official’ training region. We simply condensed the supported centres to provide more resources for our athletes.”

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Tweets on the subject by Hailey Salvian of The Athletic

These changes were driven by players

The Victory Press has released an editors note regarding the piece that was released on Sunday May 10

ICYMI: The article revealed working conditions in the NWHL which included lack of access to washrooms (leading to players having to relieve themselves in garbage cans), little to no access to private or clean change rooms, players having to beg or threaten to go public to be payed money the league owes them, poor travel arrangements and accommodations (leading to unsafe travel and high travel expenses that players were never reimbursed for), and a myriad of other unsafe and highly unprofessional working conditions. The Victory Press has confirmed that most of the stories from the article are from the 2018/2019 season.

If you only read one thing from the editor’s note, please let it be this:

“Another comment we’ve seen is that because many of the most egregious issues have since been corrected, that it is wrong to bring them up now. I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment. The fact that these incidents have been kept private has not been good for women’s hockey in general. Many people have asked why the PWHPA won’t come forward with what they thought was so bad about the NWHL that they refused to play there, and they are now upset that they have answers from some of those people, which I find rather curious. In addition, the fact that the NWHL could not be trusted to consistently provide a safe and healthy working environment for its players as recently as 2019 is very concerning and should be publicly known. That this is considered somehow no longer important or relevant (especially considering the announced NWHL expansion to Toronto, the current global pandemic, and its yet-unknown impact) defies reason.”