US Women's Team Won't Play 2017 WC

[beerleaguecaptain 999]

Men will be supporting them and not playing in IIHF.  Good job boys!!!

[chippa13 1844]

Unfortunately, someone will answer the call on the men's side. Once you get past the NHL and high profile NCAA guys then you've got the group that can't pass up the opportunity to face that level of competition and get that kind of exposure. There will be a USA team at the men's world championships.

[DarkStar50 679]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2017/03/26/american-nhl-players-could-skip-iihl-world-championships/99672342/

In another lifetime, those professional baseball players that crossed the line in 1995 for spring training were not well received later by their peers.  Hockey players would probably be wise to follow that route.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/twenty-years-ago-replacement-players-almost-opened-baseball-season-1.10142935

And all this is going down as USAH gets set for youth National Championships this weekend. Perfect timing to disrupt their little kingdom.

[marka 526]

Howdy,

9 hours ago, chippa13 said:

Unfortunately, someone will answer the call on the men's side. Once you get past the NHL and high profile NCAA guys then you've got the group that can't pass up the opportunity to face that level of competition and get that kind of exposure. There will be a USA team at the men's world championships.

 

Hopefully USA hockey isn't so stupid as to let it get that far.

It would be interesting to see if the women would accept a more full training program plus a living stipend while in that program, vs. a "wage".  USA Hockey drew a pretty firm line in the sand on the wage idea (and I tend to agree with them on that one), plus I imagine there would be legal complications related to paying an actual wage vs. reimbursement for expenses.

It still seems like they should just do what they do with the men's U18 and U17 teams, just with one team instead of two and with colleges and/or the NWHL replacing the USHL.

Mark

[shoeshine boy 242]

8 hours ago, DarkStar50 said:

And all this is going down as USAH gets set for youth National Championships this weekend. Perfect timing to disrupt their little kingdom.

and more specifically Tier 1 Girls and Women's B & C (USA Hockey dropped A level this year) in nearby Rochester Hills, MI. they clearly specifically gave us Friday off so that we could attend the medal round.

I've already put out $60 for Bronze and Gold medal games. I'd really like to see something other than Canada beating up on the "lesser" countries.

[chippa13 1844]

10 hours ago, DarkStar50 said:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2017/03/26/american-nhl-players-could-skip-iihl-world-championships/99672342/

In another lifetime, those professional baseball players that crossed the line in 1995 for spring training were not well received later by their peers.  Hockey players would probably be wise to follow that route.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/twenty-years-ago-replacement-players-almost-opened-baseball-season-1.10142935

And all this is going down as USAH gets set for youth National Championships this weekend. Perfect timing to disrupt their little kingdom.

I think trying to use the MLB strike as a comparison is a bit apples to oranges. This would be more akin to the schism in the Russian Federation where players were refusing to play.

[DarkStar50 679]

^^^^ You don't think there might not be a bit of physical retribution to any USA hockey player that would go to the Olympics and then later enter an NHL training camp? Did you read the article on MLB scabs that later made it to the majors?

[beerleaguecaptain 999]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/14-u-s-senators-reprimand-usa-hockey-on-treatment-of-uswnt-173715894.html

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

8 hours ago, shoeshine boy said:

and more specifically Tier 1 Girls and Women's B & C (USA Hockey dropped A level this year) in nearby Rochester Hills, MI. they clearly specifically gave us Friday off so that we could attend the medal round.

I've already put out $60 for Bronze and Gold medal games. I'd really like to see something other than Canada beating up on the "lesser" countries.

Tier II too, in Troy. 

We will have 106 women teams competing  within a 10 mile radius. 

[chippa13 1844]

2 hours ago, DarkStar50 said:

^^^^ You don't think there might not be a bit of physical retribution to any USA hockey player that would go to the Olympics and then later enter an NHL training camp? Did you read the article on MLB scabs that later made it to the majors?

There is a big difference between filling out a tournament roster and stepping into a person's livelihood.

[DarkStar50 679]

There is a difference between filling out a tournament roster and honoring the code of conduct of your professional peers.  Especially when the conduct of the professional players is crossing over gender lines. Do you really want to be "that guy in the room" that went to a one off tournament when for the rest of your career you are in a locker room with everyone else that turned down the request?  The rest of your career may not be that comfortable. You are not getting paid for the tournament. Is it ultimately worth the risk? It is the same age old question as before: risk vs. reward. There are a lot of personal and professional questions to be answered before deciding that a one off tournament is truly worth the experience in this situation.

[chippa13 1844]

The guys who accept will be the ones who might not have a career. I said earlier, NHLers and high end college guys will pass but those next level guys, bubble AHLers, late round/undrafted college guys might see the opportunity too good to pass up. Guys not on radars might see the possibility to get noticed as worth pissing off Parise or Kesler. Nobody cares that the NTDP kids are still showing up to practice.

[Vet88 674]

These bubble AHLers etc may also be looking to ply their trade elsewhere. There is a market for hockey players outside of NA and having team USA on your CV can make you a lot more attractive to a potential team as well as driving up your market value.

[crow93 12]

Terms weren't disclosed, but an agreement has been reached, and the women are playing again.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/hockey/2017/03/28/usa-hockey-women-dispute-world-championships/99538056/

[DarkStar50 679]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/usa-hockey-womens-national-team-avoid-boycott-with-new-contract-004350719.html

 

 

[DarkStar50 679]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/details-emerge-on-usa-hockey-womens-national-team-four-year-agreement-032309921.html

 

[Skoda10 14]

I look forward to the increase in fees when signing my kids up next year.

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

6 minutes ago, Skoda10 said:

I look forward to the increase in fees when signing my kids up next year.

I'm just glad my money is being used fairly. 

[Skoda10 14]

No I agree, some of that stuff should have been already setup like insurance, but the other things, not to beat a dead horse, could have been made fair by reducing what's provided on the men's side.

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

But one might argue that that logic might dissuade the men from participating - the standard was set for them.  This was to bring the women up. 

[DarkStar50 679]

From Elliotte Friedman, 3/22/17

"With a boycott looming over the Women’s World Championships scheduled to begin later this month in Michigan, the National Team and USA Hockey are locked into intense negotiations to save this event.

Both sides called Monday’s discussions “positive.” That’s a step, but you learn over the years that these discussions can be tenuous. We’ll see how things go. If you care about the growth of hockey, a host-country fiasco would be the opposite of good — no matter which side you support.

Some of this is about money and the age-old North American problem of how to financially support our Olympic athletes. But this is also about something else: making competitors feel as though their governing body has their backs.

According to several sources, the “last straw” for the American women involved the 2014 Sochi Olympic sweaters. There was stitching on them recognizing gold medals won by the men in 1960 and 1980, but, initially, nothing highlighting the women’s 1998 victory. This didn’t go over well.

That triumph, 3–1 over Canada, was a course-altering moment for the Canadian women's team.

“There was quite a lot of bitterness right after those games,” Therese Brisson said Monday night.

Brisson, a defenceman, won six World Championships with Canada, adding Olympic Gold in 2002. The 1998 loss was the only major tournament defeat of her international career.

“Part of the problem was the uniqueness of it all,” added Cassie Campbell-Pascall, winner of two Olympic golds and six World Championships. “We’d never had a full-time women’s team. I don’t think anyone fully understood the needs.”

Campbell-Pascall said Brisson deserves a lot of credit for what happened next.

“I ended up [in] the middle,” Brisson laughed. “There was some fear. You worry: ‘If you’re going to be the troublemaker, you’re going to get cut.’”

(It has been reported in the last week that Cammi Granato’s surprise expulsion from the 2006 U.S. Olympic team was due to her advocacy.)

But the players and Hockey Canada shared a common feeling: disappointment. They hated to lose in Nagano and were determined to avoid a repeat.

“[The players] didn’t win every battle,” Brisson said. “And the negotiations were hard sometimes. But both sides agreed with the spirit of what we were trying to do. Number one was to win. Number two was to grow the game. It was very honest. We told them what we expected from them, and they told us what they expected from us.

“[In 1998], the International Ice Hockey Federation awarded $1 million to the men’s team that won the World Championships. I think it was $50,000 for the women at that time. Our eyes were opened to make us identify other opportunities.”

The players formed a Women’s High-Performance Advisory Committee, with Hockey Canada agreeing to put a representative on its Board. They hammered out sponsorship rights for the individual versus the group, moving expenses, medical expenses and payment during Olympic years.

Brisson remembers the breakthrough moment.

“We were practising in Calgary. Towards the end, this guy shows up on the ice to skate with us for a bit. Nobody told us who he was, what he was doing there. Then they introduced him as Dan O’Neill, president and CEO of Molson, and he was stepping up with $1 million for the women’s team for (the 2002 Olympics).

“My jaw dropped.”

No relationship is perfect, but this one has come a long way.

In training for the 1998 Games, the Canadian players were paid a little more than $200 per month. By 2002, it jumped to almost 10 times that. Now, Hockey Canada hosts two fundraisers a year for the women’s team and there’s another to help parents afford travel. (Another group, the Ladies First Hockey Foundation, has raised almost $2 million since its inception.)

Hockey Canada makes sure to include male and female ambassadors on its sponsorship deals. National Team members (and some others on the periphery) have necessary medical care covered.

Since that 1998 defeat, Canada has won four consecutive golds.

“The thing we are most proud of,” Brisson says about those who worked together after 1998, “is we’ve created a legacy that’s lasted.”

A legacy their American counterparts wish to emulate."

 

At the end of the day, the USA women were also looking for a level playing field with the Canadian women in terms of support by USAH. Is that too much to ask for?

[marka 526]

Howdy,

I wish I understood more about how all this goes together.  At first, I thought this was mostly about the U17 and U18 NTDP mens teams and having the women have a similar setup.

That doesn't really seem to be the case.

 

If I understand it, this is a national team of women, made up (at least in part) of post college players.  The men's national team is similar apparently, but the different is that the men are paid to play / supported to play by their professional orgs (NHL, AHL, ECHL, etc.)?  I think its hard to justify USA Hockey paying the women directly via an "equality" argument, if USA Hockey isn't also paying the men.  But nobody has directly said if this is the case.  I'm 100% supportive of the women getting the same stuff from USA Hockey that the men get.

I'm less supportive of USA hockey supporting the players beyond what the men get from USA Hockey.  However, even if that's happening (and that appears to be the case?  It seems?  Its hard to tell), with USA Hockey's apparent charter to grow hockey I think you can justify them paying women directly as a bridge to help stuff like the NWHL take off, at which time hopefully USA Hockey won't need to pay players themselves.

Anyway, glad this is resolved even if its not perfect.

Mark

(I have no idea how the men's national team works either, since presumably the NHL/AHL/ECHL teams that pay the players would need to be ok with their employees playing?  And the NHL doesn't seem likely to support the Olympics at this point?)

[adam14 182]

It'll be really interesting to see how this pans out, my biggest concern with the comparison to the Canadian national team is the Hockey is a much bigger centre piece in Canada than it is in the United States. It is Canada's number one sport across the board, even if youth enrollment is currently on the decline Canada literally puts all their eggs in one basket and not winning gold at any level competition is seen as a disappointment. I'd almost be more likely to compare how Hockey Canada operates to how USA basketball operates in terms of social impact and importance.

It's a step in the right direction for Women's hockey, hopefully they manage to reap the benefits.

[EJB 488]

4 minutes ago, adam14 said:

It'll be really interesting to see how this pans out, my biggest concern with the comparison to the Canadian national team is the Hockey is a much bigger centre piece in Canada than it is in the United States. It is Canada's number one sport across the board, even if youth enrollment is currently on the decline Canada literally puts all their eggs in one basket and not winning gold at any level competition is seen as a disappointment. I'd almost be more likely to compare how Hockey Canada operates to how USA basketball operates in terms of social impact and importance.

It's a step in the right direction for Women's hockey, hopefully they manage to reap the benefits.

Why not compare to Hockey Canada?  If that is the Gold Standard, then try to mimic it, surpass it and become the Gold Standard.  If you are going to do something, try to be the best at it.

If USA Hockey needs to raise my fees a bit(multiple players) to strive to be the World Program all others strive to be, I'm happy to support that. 

[adam14 182]

I meant it in terms of how hockey is perceived nationally. In canada it is number one, in the united states it falls behind football baseball and basketball for boys and basketball volleyball baseball and soccer for girls. In Canada, spending money on hockey is an easy sell regardless of where you are. I don't think that's as much the case across the united states.

I'm all for trying to mimic the gold standard that wasn't my point. My point is it will be interesting to see if they can. I'd put how usa basketball operates at a gold standard as well. when was the last time the women's team lost to Canada for example?