In light of this exciting news for the future of women’s hockey coverage, I spoke with The Ice Garden’s now-previous owner, current editor-in-chief and longtime women’s hockey supporter Mike Murphy about his journey to this point and how he’s seen the sport grow over the years he’s been covering it.

This interview has been lightly edited for content & length.

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The IX Sports is collaborating with The Ice Garden to bring you Hockey Friday. And if you want the women’s hockey goodness 24/7? Well, you should subscribe to The Ice Garden now!

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Melissa Burgess: Mike, let’s start from the beginning. How did you get into writing about women’s hockey?

Mike Murphy: I always enjoyed watching Women’s Worlds when I was able to catch it, and the Olympic Games was something I always tuned into. I knew the big names — the icons — but it was just really hard to follow the women’s game.

When I came into hockey and writing as a diehard [New York] Rangers fan, I started writing about the New York Rangers at Blueshirt Banter, under the SB Nation umbrella. I started as a commenter, and people thought I was funny and knew how to put words together. So I was given the opportunity to write, and then I found that I really liked that.

I was kind of looking for something to do. I had pursued being a teacher, but my anxiety disorder made that just a little too daunting, and I had to find an outlet for my creative energy. It just so happened that coupling writing, a great passion of mine, and hockey, a great passion of mine, was like, well — why did I never think of that? That’s how I kind of got into hockey writing.

In 2015, we heard the news that there was going to be a new pro women’s hockey league. I had been aware of the CWHL, but didn’t even know how to watch the games, and there was just the one team in Boston. Everything about this sounded cool to me.

I was writing about pro New York men’s hockey, and my brain just said — why would I not write about the New York Riveters who were playing in Brooklyn? I’m writing about New York hockey. Why would I not check this out? I went to that first press conference at Aviator in Brooklyn, with Dani Rylan and [Madison] Packer and [Celeste] Brown. There was some media there, but it didn’t feel it was getting enough attention.

I had an opportunity to watch the players practice their first scrimmage and talk to a few of them. Right away, something kind of clicked for me when I started going to these games and I was hearing these stories about what they did. They were the best players in the world, and they were waiting tables and then getting to the rink. They were finishing their day as a school teacher or as a nurse or going to grad school and then getting to the rink. They worked five times as hard to make a pittance and their stories weren’t being told.

I got completely swept up in needing to tell those stories, and that’s really how it happened. It was just the serendipity of pro women’s hockey arriving within driving distance from my brother and I. At the time, I didn’t drive because of anxiety, so my little brother drove me out to games. Then I would cover the games and I would write about them for Blueshirt Banter.

Eventually, I met Kate Cimini, who gave me an opportunity to write and get paid to write at Today’s Slapshot. Then I ended up on The Ice Garden’s radar when Hannah Bevis was beginning that. That’s the start of all this. I was just getting really wrapped up in telling these stories that I thought were so under-served. These athletes loved the same thing I did and were so exceptional and had these amazing journeys to play in this first, paid-to-play pro league.

MB: I’ve been covering this sport as long as you have, and so much of what you’ve said resonates with me. When I consider where we are now, I think, if you would’ve told me 10 years ago that this is where we’d be now, I wouldn’t have believed you. In your own words, how has professional women’s hockey changed over the years that you’ve been covering it?

Mike Murphy: It’s really been fascinating. I would have said from the get-go, I didn’t expect to get involved in some of the things I got involved with, like the stats stuff and also the salary transparency stuff I got involved in. It was not something I sought to do, but I got very passionate about making resources.

I would have told you that single-entity ownership — that’s not good. But it turns out when there’s a billionaire involved, there’s more stability than we’ve ever known before. And I would have said to you, an eight-year CBA? Yikes. There’s still very, very big questions about all those things, but it’s very hard to take away from the growth we’ve seen with the PWHL, which I think really was accelerated by what we saw with the NWHL, the PHF, the CWHL and the leagues before it.

It kind of capitalized and built on the foundations that were there. It’s quite a thing that we already have expansion, and it’s unbelievable to think that we have games with tens of thousands of people going to them, and we’re setting all these attendance records and stuff that just wasn’t there before. Even just a very short amount of time ago, those were headlines attached to rivalry series games, and now those are pro hockey games.

And it feels like we finally caught up a little bit. We got to fast forward through some of the growing things we’ve all endured through the history of pro women’s hockey. We’re finally getting to where the sport and its community deserves to be for all their love and passion and sweat and tears.

And it’s been unbelievable. It’s been a whirlwind to watch it happen, and it can still be better. We need a space where players who are making the least make a living wage, and I think we’re getting closer to that. There’s a lot to be desired, like salary transparency. I wish that the [salary] cap grew at a more accelerated rate. I’m very glad we have expansion because there’s too few teams and too many talented players who aren’t playing. We need a developmental league.

We need so many things, right? It’s successful, but… it’s a big but. But the other but is that we’re getting there, and it’s working so far. And that should not be lost on anyone. It’s okay to be excited about this. It’s okay to be happy that we have the PWHL, that games are accessible, that more fans than ever are watching, that we’re at the point that this really does feel like it’s a success, a true success. That’s an awesome time to be in.

MB: Not to make you reminisce too much, but this is a good opportunity to reminisce a bit. Any favorite memories you’d like to highlight from over the years?

Mike Murphy: One of the first things that comes to mind is covering the Riveters so closely and watching them win the championship, being on the ice for that, going to the post-game celebration at Redd’s Biergarten in Newark. The players were so generous and so happy. At the celebration, I was like, I’m not taking pictures. I’m not doing the story. I’m just soaking it in. I’m just enjoying this through them.

It was huge for me because, not to get too emotional, but women’s hockey really helps me find myself. Women’s hockey found me at a point in my life where I was searching for what to do. I was struggling. I’m pretty open about mental health and all of those things. Women’s hockey games were one of the reasons that I started leaving the house more.

Getting to see that happen for the Riveters after covering the team and those players and knowing just how hard they worked for that, that was special. That was really special. Interviewing some Hockey Hall of Famers is pretty special. The day I saw that we passed that GoFundMe total for me… I couldn’t believe it.

You know, there’s little things along the way. I worked briefly for the NWHL and that was a big career growth [moment] for me. I was interviewed by The Hockey News, which is something I grew up reading. I’ve made a couple of hockey websites, all those things.

This will sound sappy and ridiculous, but those moments are all big. The thing that stands out the most to me is just people. Seeing people who have written at The Ice Garden go on to work full-time in hockey or in sports. That feels the best, that continues to resonate with me and motivate me.

Hearing from players and their families… thanking me for writing about them. It’s the weirdest thing to hear because you’re like, of course, you don’t have to thank me. All the resources that family has put into developing that young person, that young professional. And you come along and you write, you know, 600 words on a feature story. And you realize that it probably gets shared around with that whole family, and it puts a little light in the world.

It’s really that impact you can make that you can feel. In this space, there’s so much opportunity to do that. I try to talk to young creators and editors, people who are trying to write for us. Even if it’s not a fit, I always feel like the best thing you can do is just write, just create, post videos. There is so much space to make an impact in women’s hockey. There’s so much opportunity. We need so many more podcasts, shows, writers. We need people who make memes, people who make fun posters and put them up against the glass. We need it all.

There’s so much room to do stuff that resonates in this space. And it’s so rewarding because everyone who loves women’s hockey loves it the whole way. I don’t run into a lot of casual fans. I just run into people who are like, oh, yeah, that’s my life. I think that’s a special thing.

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Want women’s hockey content? Subscribe to The Ice Garden!
The IX Sports is collaborating with The Ice Garden to bring you Hockey Friday. And if you want the women’s hockey goodness 24/7? Well, you should subscribe to The Ice Garden now!

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MB: As we look back, but also look ahead, it’s certainly an exciting next chapter – both for the sport and for The Ice Garden. Any final thoughts you’d like to share as we wrap up?

Mike Murphy: As grateful as I am to all the people who have helped me along the way, I’m most grateful to people who see what we’re trying to do and say, ‘I’m going to give you some of my hard-earned money because I love this and I want this to exist.’ Even if they don’t read every article, they want it to exist, and they have that automatically taken out of their account or their PayPal or whatever it is, and that’s not insignificant. That’s huge, and I can’t thank them enough.

MB: We can’t thank you enough, either, Mike, for everything you’ve done for women’s hockey and The Ice Garden, and everything you’ll continue to do in the years to come.

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