March 8: There’s a reason why the league never used the word canceled. The NWHL will complete its 2021 season later this month at Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton, Massachusetts. On March 26-27, four teams will compete for the Isobel Cup championship, with the games broadcast on NBCSN. No fans will be in attendance. The Toronto Six take on the Boston Pride in the first semi-final, while the Minnesota Whitecaps will take on the Connecticut Whale in the second.
Feb 3: The NWHL had already seen two teams remove themselves from competition at their Lake Placid bubble and now, thanks to more positive COVID-19 test results, the entire league has decided to suspend the remainder of the 2021 season. There had been several outbreaks that left really no choice but to shut things down, an unfortunate result just before the playoffs were going to be aired on NBC Sports in the coming days.
The Toronto Six, Buffalo Beauts, Boston Pride, and Minnesota Whitecaps were scheduled to play in the semi-final round on Thursday, while the winners would play the Isobel Cup final on Friday.
As Marisa Ingemi of NBC writes, there had been additional players brought into the “bubble” over the last few days, sparking some controversy over how secure the health protocols actually were. Two teams, the Connecticut Whale and Metropolitan Riveters, who shared a hotel (along with the Whitecaps), had already pulled themselves from the competition.
Greg Wyshynski of ESPN tweets that internally, the NWHL hopes that the streaming numbers and “unprecedented mainstream interest” can still result in some positives being drawn from the tournament, but notes it is now a “critical time” as the league changes staff.
The PWHPA on the other hand, another professional women’s hockey organization that has at times been rivals with the NWHL, announced some encouraging news today instead. The New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden will host the Dream Gap Tour on February 28, claiming the first time that professional women’s hockey will be played in the arena.
For a league begging for recognition,you sure did give yourself a black eye.
You had to bring people in to infect your bubble. You seriously had that many injuries? Was it like a league record of injuries? You didn’t bubble your taxi squad? One had a great chance to do something FOR YOUR LEAGUE AND THE SPORT OF WOMEN’S HOCKEY AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO.
Oh and Happy National Girls & Women in Sports Day.
Can you really call six games a “season”?
Why not have fans at this point?
Whoever is giving these women on the Dream Gap Tour advice is doing them such a disservice…
“We want the NHL to step in and be like, `We’re going to support your league.’ We want that and we wish it was that easy,” Decker said. “Hopefully, Gary Bettman and the NHL can figure out a way to have our league started and get going, and have something that’s going to be long-term for us soon.””
They are trying to destroy the only remaining league in the world, the NWHL, paying women to play hockey (after the only other one went bankrupt) in the hopes of guilting Gary Bettman into just giving them a league.