WATERLOO, Ont. - September 18 saw a monumental moment in hockey history, as it marked the inaugural draft of the recently formed Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
"It's exciting," said former Laurier women's hockey goaltender and Golden Hawk Hall of Famer Liz Knox. "I think the draft was a great first step ... I don't think it will really hit me until I see puck drop; getting to be in the venue and in that culture, the environment of professional hockey that we've been desiring for so long."
As anyone who follows the sport knows, the creation of a unified professional women's league has been a long time coming, and Knox has been among those working towards this moment for years.
A five-year veteran of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), Knox helped found the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) in the wake of the league's folding in 2019.
"That was set up as a not-for-profit, basically to draw attention to the gap that we were seeing in women's professional hockey, in terms of lack resources."
She served on the PWHPA's board until 2020, when she resigned to make way for Sarah Nurse to become the first women of colour on the board. Now, both Knox and Nurse are part of the Executive Committee of the PWHPA's successor, the Professional Women's Hockey League Players Association (PWHLPA).
"There's lots of acronyms to follow," joked Knox, but explained that the PWHLPA is legally a union, unlike the PWHPA, meaning she and her colleagues were able to draft and negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the new league's players.
"We've had a hand on virtually every decision of how this league is going to run to this point and what the collective bargaining agreement looked like." As league play gets underway, Knox and her colleagues will be tasked with "making sure that what we talked about at the negotiation table is what we're seeing on the ice."
Brian Burke will serve as Executive Director, while Knox is joined on the Executive Committee by an all-star roster that includes Nurse, Brianne Jenner, Hilary Knight, and Kendall Coyne Schofield.
"It's a huge honour," said Knox. "It's nice to feel like my voice was important to that group, and I'm proud to represent some perspectives of the non-national team players."
"There's a great amount of mutual respect between us and the league, which is an amazing way to start, feeling like we're really working together and that the conversations we had or the things we contemplated are coming into fruition."
"The draft superseded my expectations. They did a fantastic job with the broadcast and bringing in great sport broadcasting talent [including fellow Golden Hawks alum Cheryl Pounder]."
"It's nice that more and more people are becoming aware of it, so that's where we want to shoot. We want to be a household name, putting women's hockey on the front stage."
The PWHL's inaugural season is set to begin in January of 2024.
