In Defense of the PHF

The Beginnings of Professional Sports Often Looks Amateur to the American Eye

    I am not a fan of Hilary Knight. She is an amazing player, possibly the best women's player I will see in my lifetime, and an icon in Boston's sports history. Her work was crucial in bringing about the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL), which claims to be the first league for professional women's in the United States. And in the mind of most Americans, that is true. The previously existing league that was bought out by the PWHL was known by two different names, it was founded as the National Women's Hockey League  (NWHL) and was dissolved as the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). Legally, the PHF was always considered a professional league. But Hilary Knight and several other top level players disagreed and decided to boycott the league starting in 2019 and found the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA). I am not saying Hilary Knight is wrong for this, unions and protests were obviously effective in raising the level of women's hockey. However, Hilary Knight as an individual has made plenty of comments that I disagree with, and I wish to refute with the question "what does it mean to be professional?"

     In the American eye only the top level leagues of sports are professional. and with the top leagues in many individual sports as well as American leagues leading the world of sport in many aspects this can warp our idea of what is a professional. To the American professional athlete is a class not a job. And this class is one to be revered. This led to the players of the PWHPA having an extremely classist view of the players that remained in the PHF. By definition, a sports league is professional as soon as athletes are paid to compete. This doesn't include performance bonuses or competition wins. As soon as an athlete is paid to be on a sports team they are a professional, that is their profession. The difference is most sports leagues started like the PHF. The first professionals did not make their daily living as athletes and 90% of professional athletes today still do not. But these women were professionals. The view of pro athletes as a class made the idea not all of these women could support themselves as athletes a failure rather than the groundwork it was. Americans as a result of this classism have separated this into a class known as "Semi-Professional." Hilary Knight in particular has been very demeaning to PHF and its players. All across the globe pro athletes are dually employed, as many Americans have been at the dawn of their industries. Why should players that played and retired solely in the PHF not be able to claim that moniker of "pro athlete"

    In the eyes of top level athletes, the idea of not being in the class they deserved was the insult, rather than the base upon which the PWHL was able to be built. But the PWHL has completely ignored that foundation, it erases the passionate fans that attended it and the achievements of anyone who participated in it. Why do I bring this up? Well, as we look forward and see many leagues start this century from the NWSL and WPBL and both men's and women's lacrosse we have to ask "what is a professional" as a question of sustainability. What are we looking for as we create these teams from nothing, across the country, and ask fans to be excited? The Women's Lacrosse League and Women's Professional Baseball League both are having their inaugural season in single locations despite nominally having teams across the country. I believe wholeheartedly in these efforts as they are the ones we have, however, would not a more "semi" professional model allow more teams, actually playing in their respective cities? the NWSL started in college stadiums largely concentrated in the Northeast quadrant of the country, even with the two previous leagues, the "semi-pro" W-League and pro "Women's Professional Soccer" being nationwide leagues. And for the NWSL they promoted existing clubs from WPS and W-League. of the WPS teams. NWSL built upon the work of the past. There has been little to no work on women's baseball. there is no nationally promoted amateur game, there is no regional leagues, there is no league that can be considered near professional. The number one driver of success is fan engagement. fan engagement doesn't happen through a screen, it happens at the stadium. There are fans of non-pro sports all over America, notably NCAA (which has blurred the lines in modern times) but also collegiate summer baseball, high school sports.

    And pro leagues being regional has been in the history of both hockey and baseball with the west coast having their own pro leagues for years before the top level leagues could support such a thing. The non-pro game must be played before the pro game. Football started in the NCAA, soccer with company teams. The first baseball competition was solely in the NYC metro area, and grew in popularity due to regional leagues in Massachusetts and the Mid Atlantic. Nowadays we do have mass media to market new creations but what wasn't notable at the time was how sustainable it kept the leagues. The fact many early players of all sports were in fact students, employees, or playing recreationally, was a boon to the sport rather than weighing it down. This is what the PHF offered. The opportunity for players and fans alike to build the sport from the ground up. There is no PWHL without the PHF. As obscure sports and women's sports take off such WLL and WPBL and many more, they will struggle due to the pressure of being a national sport before being a professional sport. Major League Cricket along with WLL and WPBL are all examples of new post-covid sports leagues trying to maintain interest while holding their first season at a neutral site. I feel this is a misstep, that they could have raised interest by first being a professional league within the Northeast. That there is no PWHL model, you can't create a pro sports league from nothing like they claim they have.

    And so, as the Boston Fleet start their fight for the Walter Cup against Ottawa, remember it will not be Boston's first pro women's hockey championship if they win. Don't erase the hard work of the women who worked hard to win each of the 7 Isobel cups. These women built the foundation of the sport we can enjoy today, these teams are who proved there was a market for women's hockey. Boston is a city of champions for both men and women. Alongside the banners for the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox fly the banner for the Pride's accomplishments. Honour that.