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A Moment of “Zam”

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

After an opening weekend of back-to-back tripleheaders, and an uncontested Boston Pride victory Sunday night (thank God), Monday brought a much-needed moment of zen to the Lake Placid sports complex. And also brought a bit of “Zam.” A bit of what?? If you were glued to the Twitch.tv stream and Twitter feed like I was, then you’d know I’m talking about the “Zamboni cam” in between periods. Yes. The NWHL Twitch feed actually aired the Zamboni cleaning the ice between gameplay. It’s genius. Believe me.

The Zamboni cam, I think, was not even remotely in the headspace of the marketing team. Or the videographer’s mind for that matter. Either way, for those stressed out during the games (me), it provided a sense of “Placid-ity.” Bad pun, sorry not sorry. Maybe it’s just me I don’t know, but there’s something oddly satisfying when it comes to watching a Zamboni drive back and forth to resurface the ice. A day off for the players certainly didn’t stop the NWHL marketing team from getting right to work.

For the People, By the People

Twitter is the hotspot for connectivity between fans/followers and athletes/celebrities/public figures. This weekend was no different. Many fans, including myself, found it amusing to see how much attention the Zamboni cam was actually getting. Almost too much. Honestly it’s never too much, I love it. But anyway, the NWHL Twitter timeline was spammed with a demand for Zamboni merchandise and I’ll tell you this. I’m fully on board. There’s no secret to making money. Especially when you have a brand that is gaining momentum beyond belief, you can do only one thing. Give the people what they want…

You put that s*** on a t-shirt. It’s not really an extended clothing line, but this shirt is most definitely the hottest item in the online store. That is almost a guarantee. Below are 2/4 teams with personalized “Zambonanza” t-shirts. I haven’t looked at the net profits so IDK for sure. But regardless of the sales, this is how easy marketing your brand can be. Now, it hasn’t been a cakewalk for the women’s league in a male-dominated media landscape. But when you take social media by storm with the only vehicle ever associated with hockey…you go with it! It’s like the Bernie Sanders mittens meme, fans can’t get enough of it.

  • Metropolitan Riveters
  • Connecticut Whale

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already acquire one of these bad Larry’s. It’s weird how when you go on the league store website, every team is included except Toronto and Boston. Well Boston is a privately-owned team but still. Which lowkey shows how lazy I am in going to an entirely different site for my merch. But the Pride are built different. They’re my team, I’ll rep them all day. Again with my Boston bias. Get over it. Honestly, I wish I could watch the Zoom call footage for that marketing meeting. Someone logged on and most definitely just said: “T-shirt” and left the call. The rest is her-story. Bad pun again, still not apologizing.

Social Media Stays Undefeated

Look. I can’t really say that the NHL or any other men’s league has a devoted “fancam” or even a sense of some “cult” following for a Zamboni. Or plural Zamboni’s. Basically, in order to get recognized you have to be different. Aside from specific players making headlines, the NWHL turned an inhuman object into the hottest topic – and commodity – in town. If a trend picks up traction like that, put some wheels on it and let it resurface the ice. These jokes are terrible but it’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet and I’m just writing this for fun.

If you think about it, this post could exclusively be just a thread of Twitter posts. I will @ the NWHL so I can give them their credit, don’t you worry. But there’s too many to choose from. And I wanted to at least provide some context for them. Anyways, I know social media can be a toxic environment for numerous reasons…*cough* Barstool *cough*. But if you can sift through the negatives and see that the fans are looking towards something that can grow a brand in a positive way, then you gotta capitalize on that.

Some players who were in the locker room between games actually had a bit of FOMO when it comes to enjoying the performance of the NWHL’s newest icon. Players like Kiira Dosdall Arena, defenseman for the Metropolitan Riveters, even joined in on the conversation:

I mean it’s an honest question, if you weren’t aware of the trend in real-time. Some people don’t realize that the silliest things can generate the most popularity. At any rate, it’s very amusing and inspiring to watch the women’s game grow outside of the boundaries in which the media traditionally limits them to. For the sport of women’s hockey, the sky is the limit in terms of opportunity. If you keep the league fun and interesting, fans will resonate and demand more. Enough said.

One more for the road, I couldn’t help myself…LOL

A Revolution Beyond the Ice and Between the Ropes

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

In terms of equality within the world of sports, more and more sports are giving women a chance to shine. Hockey, basketball, soccer, and even professional wrestling are listening to their audience to shed some light on the female talent. I know this doesn’t really coincide with my regular hockey-related posts, but fun fact: I love pro wrestling. ‘Allowhertoplay’ does a great job discussing the exposure of women’s talent in the WWE and their progress in gaining popularity.

For the past 34 years, the WWE has built their industry on marketing big, muscular men to fight one another in the main event of their 4 major annual pay-per-view events. The Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and of course WrestleMania. This year’s ‘Mania, WWE flipped the script and booked a main event Triple threat match for the SmackDown and Raw Women’s Championship. The match featured Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and former UFC star Ronda Rousey.

Left to Right: Becky Lynch, Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair

I’m sure that doesn’t seem interesting because it’s “fake” wrestling. However, it’s the first women’s main event in WrestleMania history. To put it in perspective, from 1985-2018, every WM main event featured men.

I think like you said, a match of this caliber wasn’t supposed to take place. Given the injuries to Becky Lynch and the angle between Flair and Rousey was supposed to go carry to ‘Mania. Lynch’s undeniable popularity with the fans made it a no-brainer for her to go over and win the Women’s Royal Rumble.

I agree that the WrestleMania match itself was packed with adrenaline and a lot of excitement. Mainly due to the months of buildup towards the match. I did notice also that people were visibly drained from sitting in a stadium all day. The event should have wrapped up earlier than 12:30 am. But if you wanted to see the first-ever women’s main event; patience was key. In the end, the fans and I got what we wanted; Becky Lynch is the new unified Women’s Champion.

Becky Lynch victorious at WrestleMania 35

Though it may not seem like a big deal since it’s just a wrestling match, it blazes the trail for years to come. It shows that even though men can sell tickets and put on a great show…women are just as big a draw, maybe even more. Women were overshadowed by the men for such a long time, but those days seem to be over. I just hope next year, we’ll see a rematch or even new talent to showcase in the primetime spot of WrestleMania.

Starting From the Bottom

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

As some may have heard, aside from my last post, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League is coming to an end. There was no money left in the piggy bank so the 150+ players are out of a job. But of course – with death comes rebirth.

The NWHL is trying their best to adopt this large number of players into their league. However, they don’t realize that expanding teams can help facilitate their need for putting these players somewhere.

The grassroots campaign “NWHL to Seattle” actually launched this morning. In hopes to begin extensive talks with the league to outsource a team to Seattle, Washington. The first west coast team in the league.

The startup organization’s site is obviously very new, not even a day old. They are already selling merchandise to promote this expansion to the Great Northwest. From their mission statement and general purpose, this organization has pretty big plans for the soon-to-be team in Seattle.

Stevens Tysland, who is a former US Olympian, is the spokesperson for “NWHL to Seattle,” plans to have the NWHL all star game in their inaugural season. Very ambitious for a team that doesn’t exist. But I like it.


“We believe Seattle can become a hub for training hockey players — both women and men. The professional players will serve as role models for up-and-coming players and the new world-class facilities will provide more access and opportunity to develop future college, professional, and Olympic athletes. Fostering a hockey hub in Seattle will keep talent in the Pacific Northwest and enable players to stay in the area to continue their professional careers, both on and off the ice.”

-Kelly Tysland

As this campaign moves forward, I hope that more cities will realize that ice hockey is a community sport and should be shared by many. Seattle is a great sports town, but it shouldn’t stop there. Getting involved with progressing this expansion is important because the players that lost their job playing in Canada need a place to play. Your help actually matters!

So tell me, what can you do to get involved? Where would you like to see the most elite women hockey players in the world play? Everyone can do their part, don’t let this women’s revolution die.

League Closing, Everything Must Go

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

Professional sports is a funny business. Of course like any other business, making money by any means necessary is the main priority. But when there’s no money left and you can’t pay your players…you close up shop.

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) announced last week that the organization will be disbanding in May. For many people who don’t watch hockey, this may seem like no big deal. Avid hockey fans however are outraged and rightfully so.

Kacey Bellamy (left), Hilary Knight (center), Alex Rigsby (right)
Credit: Chris Young

Honestly the CWHL served as the home to more recognizable names than the NWHL does. Hilary Knight, Marie-Philip Poulin and a few others now have to look for a new place to play.

“We will pursue any and all opportunities to ensure the best players in Canada have a place to play” – NWHL Commissioner Dani Rylan

This abrupt ending of the hockey league is the center of some controversy simply because of how quickly the news sprung on the players and general public. Both were surprised honestly. Also, it creates a sense of regression in the development of women’s sports. It’s very interesting because the CWHL expanded to China with two teams. International sponsors and brands could have easily supported this league but who knows.

There is now only 1 professional women’s hockey league in North America. I mean, even though it didn’t really work out financially for the CWHL, being established for 12 years is something to be proud of I suppose. But it doesn’t justify the fact that about 150 players are now out of a job. A job that can’t even help these players make ends meet on a maximum $10,000 yearly salary.

For a sport that is gaining momentum and popularity in the eyes of the media and fans alike, I would really like to see what the NWHL can do to step up and welcome these now “free agents” into the league.

The Name On The Back Is More Important

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

Off the top of your head, can you tell me the number of professional women’s hockey teams there are? I’m sure you didn’t think of all 14. Not many people, including my sister who plays hockey, could think of three. Well first off, there’s two leagues. One’s based in Canada and the other is in the United States.

The CWHL and NWHL are home to some of the world’s most elite women skaters, many of which compete in the Olympics. Hilary Knight is probably the most well-known player, as I’m sure you’ve at least heard the name. She’s won both gold and silver in the Olympics since 2010.

Why is she so popular? Knight has been the “face” of women’s hockey because she branded herself as an advocate for women’s rights and gender equality. A very important movement to support.

The CWHL has used this example to create the CWHLPA. An organization to help players create a personal brand and enterprise themselves. This is the first players association in women’s ice hockey. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is.

Sponsors will gravitate to these players more with this association’s help.

Hilary Knight during a Red Bull photoshoot 2017
Photo Credit: Brian Lowe

I use Hilary Knight as because she has about 9 major brands sponsoring her. Chobani, GoPro, and Red Bull are just a few. This surprises many people. How many hockey players do you know that are sponsored by a yogurt company?

The CWHL has created the players association to expose more women skaters to these sponsors and brands. The main ideology for this is due to their salary. These players make at most $20,000 per year. College kids on a budget can’t even make ends meet with that.

The initiative includes things like helping players create personal logos and websites, etc. For a developing professional sport, it’s a good strategy for publicity.

It also acts as a post-hockey retirement plan. If you can retire and still represent Nike or Petco, for example, that’s easy money.

The CWHL definitely figured out a plan to get their players on the map. While doing that, it helps the league attract viewers. While some players have already kicked down the door of opportunity, I’m very interested to see who will carry their name to new heights. Beyond the back of their jersey.

NHL Extends The Invite, But Not The Paycheck

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

NHL All-Star weekend showcases the many different skills a player possesses and puts them to the test in head-to-head competition. Every year, the skills challenge is a big event as we see many different challenges such as passing precision, hardest slap shot, fastest skaters, and shooting accuracy. One interesting aspect of this year’s event was that two women were added to the competition: Brianna Decker and Kendall Coyne-Schofield.

I’m sure it comes to no surprise to anyone that seeing women in a men’s league skills competition, that their presence turned a few heads in confusion and curiosity. I for one, was very happy to see some diversity in the skills competition because who’s to say women can’t skate as fast or shoot as well as the guys?

Kendall Coyne participated in the fastest skater event and Decker competed in the Premier Passer competition. In the skating event, Coyne proved her worth as she recorded a time of 14.346 seconds, taking one lap around the rink. Unfortunately, she placed 7th out of 8 competitors, but what I find to be the most important takeaway is that people will remember the name Kendall Coyne.

Now, what would this article be about if there was no substance of controversy? There were eight players who were competing in the passing skills challenge, Brianna Decker performed the demo for the challenge before it began. Many people in the audience were confused because they, along with myself, thought she was competing as well. Evidently she was just giving us a walk through of how it was set up.

The controversial side of this was that whoever finished the challenge the fastest, was awarded $25,000. Brianna Decker had completed the “tutorial” in 1 minute and 6 seconds. The official winner, Leon Draistaitl, had finished the challenge in 1 minute and 9 seconds. I thought it was interesting because the officials only acknowledged an “official” competitor as the winner, which created backlash from fellow players and female athletes alike.

I, along with many other people, found that this was absurd because she should be recognized more than she is for putting up the fastest time. This injustice was not taken lightly as the hockey brand CCM found it only fitting that a few days later they would personally award her the $25,000 she missed out on.

Brianna Decker

CCM served as the social justice warrior in this situation by picking up the pieces of a broken system and making things right with both Decker and the women’s hockey community.

One can hope that next year, the NHL gets it right and extends the invitation to more women players so they can dominate the competition.

Are you Hitting Me?!

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

When you turn on a hockey game, what’s the first thing you notice? You might say that the puck is too small to see or that everyone’s skating very fast. But the one thing that goes on without even realizing it, is how often the players hit each other. Men’s ice hockey is very physical as it is mainly a test of strength as well as skill. Many players have a role of the “enforcer” which basically means they are paid to hit people and fight. If you watch a women’s ice hockey game, there’s no such thing as an enforcer. Believe it or not, there’s an actual rule against hitting all together. You may find it odd to think that in a game that requires such strength and agility, that women are discouraged to hit one another for their own safety. So why then, are men and women allowed to play the same sport but men are allowed to make contact?

Putting on pads serves only as a formality as injuries can occur for both men and women. You could tell me that women are too weak to protect themselves over a hip check into the boards, and I can give you at least five examples of guys who got laid out in plain sight, no thanks to their helmets or pads. The physicality makes watching the men’s games exciting and the women’s brand suffers due to a lack of contact. Professional women’s leagues are suffering from low ratings because people want to see violence and contact, not this game of respecting personal space.

Denna Laing, a former NWHL forward for the Boston Pride, suffered a career ending injury in 2016 where she crashed hard into the boards chasing the puck. Many people look at this incident and say “this is why women shouldn’t be able to play contact sports!” First of all, she fell into the boards after being tripped up and quite frankly she couldn’t really protect herself that close to the wall. Laing was paralyzed from the neck down following this incident which is cause for concern in the women’s ice hockey community.

Do women lack some gene that makes them incapable to play at a level where physicality isn’t a problem? I would really like to know because from what I can see, aside from incidents on both sides, there seems to be no difference in the pace of play and the level of talent that’s on the ice. Nathan Horton, Denna Laing, Marc Savard are just a few names of players whose careers have ended due to injuries from being hit. It just confuses me because with the lack of contact in women’s hockey there has been one real injury. With men’s hockey, there have been countless open-ice hits, pucks to the face, and other injuries that outweigh the women’s.

Women want to hit and because of the feminine nature surrounding them, they’re told no. In a “male-dominated sport” such as ice hockey, if you aren’t gonna let women compete at the same level and with the same rules, why waste everyone’s time? Elite female hockey players like Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan compete in the Olympics and train their bodies to absorb hits and use their strength to out muscle their opponents just the same as men. So it makes you wonder, why are these women being held back?

Opening Face-off

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

Women’s ice hockey is sport that has gained momentum in terms of popularity among young girls and adults alike. The problem however, lies within the fact that the media doesn’t do enough to promote the sport and creates a stereotype that women don’t deserve enough air time because women are not as masculine or athletic as men. Within the landscape of ice hockey as a whole, women are primarily recognized during the Olympics. Within the 4-year gap between events, how are they represented in the media? I plan to explore this dilemma further in understanding why women aren’t given their fair share of publicity.

I think it’s important for my readers to get a sense of how the world of sports is evolving and how women are using their voice to stand up and say: “we deserve a chance.” Throughout my publication(s), I want the audience to see through different perspectives, how the media is portraying women’s ice hockey both positively and negatively. I would like to discuss how different men’s ice hockey is from women’s and how the limitations for the women suggest physical inferiority. By using these negative or oppressive stereotypical examples, I believe they will help readers understand how we can turn these issues into solutions.

Throughout this publication, I’m not trying to argue who is better at playing hockey. I think it’s hard to differentiate and compare talent when some people don’t even know that professional women’s hockey exists. Within the realm of gender inequality in ice hockey, I want to limit the focus of weaknesses that women have because my main goal is to build on the fact that these athletes play an elite level and deserve to be seen as equal.

Exploring different aspects and headlines that display gender inequality in women’s ice hockey. For example, I would like to discuss the comparison of salaries between professional female players and NHL players. A lot of the imbalance in who gets paid more is due to airtime and actual visual presence on TV. NHL games are televised on a daily basis which cultivates sponsors and generates revenue, whereas the NWHL gets little to no recognition resulting in far less capital. I want to talk about how the lack of media recognition, outside of the Olympics, hurts women and their sport because they’re seen as less interesting than men.

Outside of the sport of ice hockey, I’ve become a firm believer in the idea that women deserve the same rights and opportunities that men have. I’ve been inspired to explore this issue within the world of ice hockey because my sister is a female hockey player. She feeds off of people’s criticism that girls are too frail or unathletic to play hockey. When my sister was little, she wanted to learn how to skate and be like the boys. She had to join the boys youth teams because there were no girls teams around. This is inspiring to me because I want to help uncover this “hidden” sport and use my source of inspiration as a role model for other little girls to defy gender norms.

As I continue with this publication, I would ideally want my audience to target young women who feel like there isn’t a chance for them to play a sport that they are interested in. I think this topic can bring to light the issues that derogate this the athletes who play this sport and the women who are ambassadors for this sport whom I will talk about as well, can act as a beacon of hope for aspiring female hockey players. I think my audience could also extend to parents and adults who believe women hockey players deserve the same opportunities as men or “athletic feminists”.

Women’s ice hockey is a growing sport in the world but just how much of it do we know? A lot of the unfamiliarity comes from the idea that media does not cover enough of women’s sports in general and specifically ice hockey, due to it’s masculine and physical nature. I believe it’s crucial for sports fans to understand this injustice that women are being overlooked because they aren’t as talented and can’t generate revenue or ratings outside of the Olympics. By addressing the problem that women are not treated or seen as equal to the men in this sport both physically and journalistically, we can inspire change and spread awareness to the fact that women are just as talented as male hockey players and deserve the same amount of attention and respect.