{"id":6168,"date":"2024-02-15T09:42:26","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T14:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2024-02-15T09:42:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T14:42:26","slug":"womens-hockey-to-the-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/2024\/02\/15\/womens-hockey-to-the-front\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Hockey to the Front"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Wednesday, <\/span>Campus Recreation<\/span><\/a> joined organizations across the globe to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Led by the <\/span>Women’s Sports Foundation<\/span><\/a>, the day is to honor, acknowledge, and celebrate female athletes and the progress of girls and women in sports. While this is a special day every year, this year felt particularly special in light of the inauguration of the PWHL, the newest Professional Women\u2019s Hockey league. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of last season, professional women\u2019s hockey skaters put up their jerseys, not knowing their plans for the next year. Women\u2019s professional hockey has struggled with the same issues other women\u2019s sports face: sexism, unstable funding, and lack of visibility. Routinely, women\u2019s teams are undervalued. Executives question putting money into franchises because they perceive a lack of interest in women\u2019s sports, and trivialize the value of female engagement. <\/span><\/p>\n

In doing so, women\u2019s teams face impossible odds. They are significantly underfunded making it nearly impossible to sustain or grow leagues; several iterations of professional women’s leagues have gone under due to a simple lack of investment. Yet, the prevailing narrative has simply been that women\u2019s teams are just not as viable as men\u2019s teams. <\/span><\/p>\n

The PWHL\u2019s debut has blown these perceptions out of the water. The 1st ever PWHL game reached almost 3 million unique viewers, selling out Toronto\u2019s Mattamy Athletic Centre. Throughout the regular season, fans have continued to blow out the box office, setting and then again breaking attendance records for women\u2019s hockey. This league is different from the past installations. It is a direct counterpart to the men\u2019s league, the NHL, with money to back it. The league\u2019s success speaks to what is possible when women\u2019s teams receive proper support. <\/span><\/p>\n

As someone who loves hockey and grew up playing a variety of girl’s sports, I was deeply touched watching the PWHL debut. In fact, it\u2019s hard not to watch a PWHL game without getting a little misty-eyed. A scan of the crowd reveals troves of girls and women; electric fans not shy about the importance of this event. <\/span>The Athletic<\/span><\/a> sums it up quite poignantly:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA grandmother, mother and daughter sat together with a sign reading, \u201cThree generations of hockey players.\u201d A young girl wearing a hockey jersey was holding a sign that read, \u201cFuture PWHL Star.\u201d And another fan held up a sign that simply read, \u201cIt\u2019s about damn time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

URI\u2019s own Women\u2019s Hockey team is feeling the effects of watching the PWHL blossom. I reached out to captain Emily Jedson for her thoughts:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe PWHL has already started their inaugural season off with a bang, shattering records for attendance, selling out entire arenas, and being live-streamed on ESPN. This league has been a long time coming, and fans of all the previous leagues are happy to be able to come together and root for all their favorite players in one place. From the young fans to the female officials, to the players themselves, this league is for everyone. <\/span><\/p>\n

When the Boston team was announced, we were all so excited to be able to have a team that\u2019s so close to root for. We\u2019re planning on heading to Tsongas Arena soon to catch a couple of games before the season ends and cannot wait to see some of our favorite players in action! <\/span><\/p>\n

We owe a lot to the trailblazers such as Hillary Knight and Kendall Coyne-Schofield for continuing to advocate for all current and future players, and we\u2019re so glad that women\u2019s hockey is finally getting the public recognition it deserves!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an honor to watch women\u2019s teams thrive in a competitive environment. If you\u2019d like to support a group of fantastic athletes, in honor of National Girls and Women in Sports day, attend a <\/span>URI Women\u2019s Hockey<\/span><\/a> game!. Your engagement means a lot!<\/span><\/p>\n

Upcoming URI Women\u2019s Club Hockey Home Games at the Boss Arena
\n<\/span>2\/16 vs. Maryland at 10 pm
\n<\/span>2\/17 vs. Maryland at 12:15 noon
\n<\/span>2\/18 vs. Concordia at 10:30 am
\n<\/span>2\/23 vs. UMass at 7 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Milo Heard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Wednesday, Campus Recreation joined organizations across the globe to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Led by the Women’s Sports Foundation, the day is to honor, acknowledge, and celebrate female athletes and the progress of girls and women in sports. While this is a special day every year, this year felt particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4739,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2024"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4739"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6171,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions\/6171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inside-rec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}