Professional women’s hockey suffered a major setback in the spring when it was announced the Canadian Women’s Hockey League was folding after 12 seasons.
Now many in the sport are looking at the 2020 IIHF Women’s World Championship being played in Halifax and Truro as a pivotal moment for the women’s sport.
“A lot of the issue with women’s sport is that we don’t have the visibility that the men’s side does,” said Team Canada goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer.
“I think with this tournament coming up, we have the opportunity to showcase our skill and our competitive level but it’s also going to be an amazing opportunity to show the young girls they can aspire to play professional hockey one day.”
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League was founded in 2007 and continued for 12 seasons until it folded in the spring of 2019.
Over the years, there have been numerous attempts at getting a professional women’s hockey league up and running, but the challenge has been sustaining the league and finding revenue streams to pay the players a proper living wage.
“We’re fighting for the young females and equality in hockey and in sport in general,” said Maschmeyer. “But I think this is a woman’s movement all over the world.”
WATCH: (April 5, 2019) Female hockey players devastated after CWHL folds
After the CWHL folded in the spring, close to 200 players formed a union under the banner of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association and they have formed a travelling hockey showcase called the Dream Gap Tour.
The tour gives players like Maschmeyer and Halifax’s Jill Saulnier a chance to continue to play at a high level while fighting to get the sport back up and running at a professional level, as well as to allow boys and girls to share the same dream of one day playing professional hockey.
“We’re going to fight for a professional league and we’re not going to stop for anything else,” said Maschmeyer.
In March, the best women’s hockey players in the world will be showcasing their skills and competing for gold as Halifax and Truro will host the 2020 IIHF Women’s World Championships. Canada will open the tournament on March 31 when they host Finland.
Hockey Canada officials were in Halifax on Wednesday to announce ticket packages were on sale and to draw up some hype ahead of the tournament.
Dartmouth native and Team Canada general manager Grant MacDonald says this tournament will be different for Team Canada, with many of its players no longer playing on a professional league this winter.
“As a result, Hockey Canada has made the commitment to bring the team together more frequently to ensure that we can build a cohesive unit that will be able to compete for gold in Halifax and Truro,” said MacDonald.
Team Canada has medaled at every IIHF tournament, winning 10 gold, eight silver and a bronze medal, which they won last year in Finland in a 7-0 victory over Russia — a disappointment for a team that always aims to be in the gold medal final.
“Team Canada is always focused on Gold,” said MacDonald. “Having won on home ice here in 2004, we’re hopeful it will be a precursor to a similar result here in 2020.”
The 31-game tournament will see the A division played in Halifax with teams Finland, USA, Russia, Switzerland and Canada, while the B division will be played in Truro with teams from Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Japan.
The preliminary round-robin tournament will wrap up on April 5th with the medal games to take place April 10th at the Scotiabank Centre.
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