This week on The IX Sports Podcast Hockey Edition, host Maya Smith is joined by The Ice Garden’s resident hockey historian, LJ Bachenheimer, to discuss the recent history of women’s hockey in North America.
Before jumping into the history books, Smith and Bachenheimer took some time to discuss the NHL’s San Jose Sharks’ PWHL theme night.
“As far as I know, this is like the first very like outright PWHL and NHL collab. They had Layla Edwards dropping the puck, and the crowd was just deafening,” Smith said. PWHL San Jose merchandise was for sale at the game, and a reporter for The Ice Garden reported on the event.
Both Smith and Bachenheimer said that although they wanted to see the PWHL be independent of the NHL, it was encouraging to see the partnership between franchises.
“But I think synergy within a city and within a market can be really good for helping to get things out there and get people excited, and I think seeing San Jose and the Sharks like really leaning into this team even before they play a single game is really cool and really fun to see,” Bachenheimer.
Then, Bachenheimer and Smith walked through many women’s hockey league that have shaped North America over the past 25 years.
“There was the Central Ontario Women’s Hockey League, which was one of the top leagues. They were founded in the early ’80s and were the predecessors to the first National Women’s Hockey League,” Bachenheimer explained.
After the first NWHL came the Western Women’s Hockey League (WWHL), founded because Western teams in the NWHL were sick of traveling so far for games. Later, the founding of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) was founded, and WWHL and CWHL teams played each other in a championship cup.
What was seen as the abrupt collapse of the CWHL had a lasting impact on women’s hockey fans, and shaped the eventual emergence of the PWHL from the the assets of the second National Women’s Hockey League, later the Premier Hockey Federation.
How did the PWHL come to be? And how do the stories of these past leagues inform the story of the current one? Tune in to this week’s episode to find out.
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