The women’s version of the NHL, PWHL is in high demand. How much do female hockey players earn?

Women’s hockey has been in the public consciousness for some time now, but a fully professional league overseas PWHL, modeled after the NHL, has only just begun to take off on January 1, 2024. And it immediately began to draw public interest both in stadiums and on TV screens. The first artifacts were even sent to the Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Dream Week. That’s what you could call the first ever week of the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League). The management of the newly formed competition didn’t know how the public would react to the idea of creating a women’s NHL. But the first numbers are making the organizers very happy.

The league kicked off on 1 January 2024 with the opening league game between Toronto and New York, which New York won 4-0. Ella Shelton, defenseman for Team Canada and New York’s fourth overall pick, scored the first goal in league history.

Corinne Schroeder made twenty-nine saves for the first clean sheet. That’s the list of PWHL opening night records. The sticks and goal pucks from those moments are already headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. They care deeply about history overseas and know how much value these artifacts will one day have.

A total of six teams are participating in the inaugural season, following the NHL’s Original-six model: Montreal, Toronto, New York, Boston Ottawa and Minnesota. The six teams are also split between six Czech women hockey players. Ottawa’s head coach is Carla MacLeod, the coach of the Czech women’s national team.

High fan interest of PWHL

“Will people watch?“, the organisers asked themselves. The first week showed that they probably will. According to the league, a total of 2.9 million viewers watched the game on Canadian television stations CBC, TSN and Sportsnet.

In addition, Ottawa set a record for attendance at a women’s professional hockey game when 8,318 fans came to see women’s hockey at TD Place. However, this record did not last long, because just four days later 13,316 fans came to the Minnesota vs. Montreal game. Minnesota won 3-0 and became the first team to win on home ice in the league.

Overseas journalists call the opening week of the competition “exciting and like a historic beginning”. Within a few days, the league’s management proved to itself that there could be a lot of interest in the women’s hockey product on the market.

Quite a rarity, the PWHL has also already had its first postponed game in its short lifetime. The game between Boston and Ottawa did not take place due to inclement weather, which the league said affected the players’ travel. Coincidentally, these are the only two teams that have yet to win in the first week of the season.

Different rules and interesting contracts

One of the reasons the PWHL is pulling out is also the somewhat specific rules for women’s hockey. In women’s hockey, hits were banned until recently, which fans said was spoiling the appeal quite a bit. In other words, the PWHL rules are no different from those of the IIHF, but they are, shall we say, a bit more benevolent.

Point hits are allowed in the rules in both organizations if there is an obvious intention to play the puck or if the hockey players try to get it under control. While in the World Championships, for example, we see a number of strict suspensions for body contact, the referees in the PWHL take a more “hockey-like” approach. This is appreciated not only by the fans, but also by the hockey players on the ice.

Another interesting rule for overseas is the three-point system. The winner gets three points for winning in regulation time, following the European competition. In the men’s NHL, a win after 60 minutes is worth two points. But otherwise, other rules are still in development.

The average salary for female hockey players in the women’s version of the NHL is $55,000, and the minimum salary is $35,000. According to the Toronto Sun website, the maximum a toy can earn is $120,000.

Of course, these are still relatively distant sums compared to the NHL. However, it can be expected that as the viewership grows, so will the salaries of female hockey players. At least in the first week, the PWHL got off on the right foot.

Source: The Athletic, PWHL