How action sports and women’s professional hockey find common ground.
Full disclosure, while action and adventure sports are the main passions of mine, I love hockey. When played correctly, hockey is art on ice. But aside from the occasional former collegiate all star taking his or her talents on the ice to ice cross downhill (crashed ice), hockey and action sports were always two separate categories never intertwined.
It was not until recently when I read that North America’s female Olympic hockey stars are among nearly 200 professional players participating in an exhibition “Dream Gap Tour” to draw attention to the fact that there is not a professional league consistently showcasing the best women’s hockey in the world; a league that pays players a living wage, and with the infrastructure to set the sport up for long-term success. I reflected on action sports, and most notably the World Surf League, where they have no pay disparity. The action sports community has always been about progression, whether it be the trick they are working on or in ways like pay equality and even sport equality as a whole, action sports have always been way ahead of other traditional sports in this regard.
Throughout the culture around action and adventure sports, including the female perspective in the sport creates a more rounded frame of reference when making far-reaching decisions.
That is the goal of the Dream Gap Tour. And there are lessons that come from the action sports community that we can use to encourage this tour.
Our community can help to bridge this gap.
“There is a disconnect in a lack of resources, infrastructure and at times a lack of respect in our sport,” said Kendall Coyne Schofield, USA Women’s Hockey Olympic Gold Medalist and San Jose Sharks color commentator. “There is no place currently for ladies to be a professional athlete and make a livable wage after college. Growing up, the end goal was dreaming about playing college hockey or even winning a gold medal in the Olympics. There was never a moment when we could say, ‘When I grow up I want to be a professional hockey player like the men can.”
So how can we as a community of action sport enthusiasts help support this even if we aren’t hockey fans? Why does it matter? Because, beyond hockey is that the lack of viable professional leagues in many women’s sports creates a “Dream Gap” for young girls who are left without a destination for their hopes and aspirations. The result is teenage girls leaving organized sports in far greater numbers than boys.
“Sometimes we can be our worst enemy,” said Schofield. “We as women players merely took the opportunities in front of us and we were grateful for what we had. We didn’t realize that by just taking the status quo or hand me down opportunities to play, meant that in the future we still would not have a sustainable place to grow, learn and play. We want to provide an opportunity for a young girl to see whats possible and have a place to cultivate that dream.”
Any place from a skate park to a skate rink that encourages youth to follow a passion is something worthy of our support.
The PWHPA Dream Gap Tour, powered by Unifor and Budweiser, will include action-packed weekends featuring youth clinics and four-team exhibition tournament culminating with a market champion. The world’s best players including Hilary Knight, Marie-Philip Poulin, Sarah Nurse, Natalie Spooner, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Amanda Kessel, Monique Lamoureux-Morando, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Brianna Decker, Noora Raty, Renata Fastand Brianne Jenner are all participating in the tour. The 2019 – 2020 tour includes:
- Toronto, Canada (September 20 – 22, 2019)
- Hudson, New Hampshire (October 4 – 6, 2019)
- Chicago, Illinois (October 18 – 20, 2019)