Published October 16, 2023

Peter Black

Local Journalist Initiative reporter

Peterblack@qctonline.com

Surprisingly few headline writers went with the somewhat patronizing “a league of their own” in stories about the end of a lingering feud between rival women’s hockey associations and the birth of a new and united league.

If you missed the story amidst coverage of this summer’s floods, fires or Trump trials, it’s essentially that the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association merged with the Premier Hockey Federation, blessed with some deep-pocketed financial backing, to form the Women’s Professional Hockey League (WPHL).

The deal announced in early July includes an initial six teams, three in the United States – Boston, New York City and Minneapolis–Saint Paul – and three in Canada – Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Last week the teams were busily signing and drafting players with the goal of a season and league debut in January.

This development is a miracle of sorts, given the profound disarray of the women’s pro game in recent years and the refusal of the NHL to officially support any faction. That obstacle has been removed and the men’s league will be partners of sorts with the women’s.

The league hired NHL front office veteran Brian Burke to represent the players, the lowest paid of which will earn $35,000. The biggest stars will earn up to $110,000, which is possibly what Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews spends on hair and mustache products per annum.

In the end, the women’s pro hockey merger was relatively serene and civilized compared to the 1979 World Hockey Association (WHA) merger with the NHL. That transaction was not actually a merger, but a takeover by the traditional league of the upstart loop on very harsh terms. Whatever, it still gave Canada three NHL teams: the Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets (the first edition) and Quebec Nordiques (until 1995).

Some folks of a certain age will recall the WHA championship trophy was called the Avco Cup, which the Jets won three times and the Nordiques once. The artsy trophy with the floating crystal ball, named for the financial arm of a defence contractor, was retired when the WHL died, and the three copies of the cup are on display in hockey museums in Toronto, Winnipeg and Halifax.

It is assumed, though it has not been confirmed (as far as we can tell), that the WPHL championship hardware would be the Isobel Cup, the trophy battled for since 2016 by teams of the the Premier Hockey Federation.

The current Isobel Cup champions are the Toronto Six, who defeated the Minnesota Whitecaps in a game played at the Mullett Arena in Tempe, Ariz., the 5,000-seat Arizona State University rink which is the temporary home of the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes.

Teams created for PWHPA competitions, meanwhile, have played since 2020 for the Secret Cup, named for the women’s deodorant brand that gave the association a million-dollar sponsorship. There’s a bit of a hint of a hockey future in Secret’s 1958 debut product, the Ice-Blue roll-on. The deodorant’s somewhat ambiguous tagline – “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman” – still resonates 50 years after it was unveiled.

There’s more to the Secret connection with the women’s hockey world. The brand, one of dozens in the Procter & Gamble health and hygiene empire, has been a major sponsor of the Women in Sports Foundation tennis legend Billie Jean King founded in 1974. (Fifty years ago this month, King beat aging former pro Bobby Riggs in the so-called Battle of the Sexes.)

King’s Billie Jean King Enterprises worked with Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter to buy out the PHF and unblock the impasse between the rival women’s leagues.

King’s Secret affiliation aside, it would seem the Isobel Cup has more of a noble allure than one named for a body odour retardant. The Cup is named for Lord Stanley’s hockey-loving daughter, Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy. Lord Stanley, of course, was governor general of Canada who, in 1893, at the urging of Isobel and her many hockey-loving siblings, donated a championship cup for men’s hockey.

Which of the six teams in the brand new women’s professional hockey league will be the first to hoist the as-yet-to-be-decided championship trophy next spring? Will a Canadian team finally win a Stanley (family) cup?

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