Women’s Hockey League first-ever championship down to final face-off

Black Girls Hockey Club wants more girls of color in the game

If successful this week, PWHL Minnesota will become only the third local professional sports team to win a league championship in this century. Minnesota and Boston are tied at two games apiece in the best-of-five Walter Cup series, with the deciding game scheduled for Wednesday, May 29 in Boston.

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) began its inaugural season in January with six teams. Minnesota and Boston were the last two teams to qualify for the postseason and reach the league’s first-ever championship finals.

The league only has four Black players, and Minnesota leads with two—Sophie Jaques and Nikki Nightingale—along with Toronto’s Sarah Nurse and Mikyla Grant-Mantis of Ottawa. Nightingale is a reserve player, and reserve players don’t travel with their teams on road trips. 

The notably small number of Black players was first brought up by the MSR with PWHL Advisory Board member Stan Kasten back in January (MSR, January 17), who replied, “A good question, a fair question, and a very important question.”   

Kasten and Jayna Hefford, PWHL senior VP of hockey operations, both spoke to the media last Friday prior to Game 3. This time Hefford took our diversity across-the-board question.

“The first thing is representation,” she told the MSR. Although we haven’t seen that many Black faces at Minnesota games, “It doesn’t matter what market we’re in, there’s a sense of inclusivity in our buildings,” Hefford stressed. “I think what we want to do is continue to do more for the game, for young girls, and I don’t think there’s any limits on who these young girls are.

“I think we approach the business side and our staffing the same way,” continued Hefford, “to bring people into the game and love the game. We want to bring people in that represent different communities.”

Both Kasten and Hefford reiterated that the league in January hired Saroya Tinker, a former Black college and pro hockey player who retired just before the PWHL season began, as its manager of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“We’ll continue to try to find different creative ways to bring more people into the game,” stated Hefford. “And that certainly includes on the diversity side.”

TSN rinkside reporter Raegan Subban, a former player herself, was the only person of color on the finals broadcasting team. She also is involved with the Black Girls Hockey Club, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting hockey to Black girls and bringing in more Black fans as well.  

Subban explained, “We give young girls that look like us an opportunity to play [and get] free ice -time] and free gear. We give them coaching from people that look like them as well.”

Tennis legend Billie Jean King and former World Team Tennis Commissioner Ilana Kloss, both of whom also are PWHL Advisory Board members, told us on Sunday before Game 4 that hockey indeed needs more Blacks playing it. 

“We need more girls of color,” said King. “I want everyone to dream the dream,” including Blacks, Latinos and other POC, she pointed out. 

Jaques, who was part of the league’s first trade when Boston traded her to Minnesota in February, led all defenders in playoff scoring with five points in nine games. “It’s definitely been an incredible season,” she said. “This has all been really cool and I’m grateful to be a part of everything.”

Concluded Subban, “It’s historic, and it’s crazy that I get to be able to tell my kids one day that I was a part of this.”