I commented yesterday that USA Hockey was facing unsustainable pressure to settle its 15-month pay dispute with the 23 players on the women’s national team.
I cited growing solidarity in recent days with the players among female members of the US Senate and male players in every major professional sport. But the writing was on the wall weeks ago, when USA Hockey began its patently ill-fated attempt to recruit scrubs from among college Hockey players.
This is why I was not surprised that, at the proverbial eleventh hour, USA Hockey ended up agreeing to practically all of the players’ demands.
The US women’s national hockey team and USA Hockey agreed to a landmark new contract on Tuesday to avert the players’ boycott of the IIHF World Championships that begin Friday and significantly address the women’s protests about compensation and the federation’s inequitable treatment of its girls’ and women’s programs. …
The team’s annual compensation will improve to roughly $70,000 per player [plus] performance bonuses USA Hockey agreed to pay the women for the first time … could push their income over six figures if they win the Olympics or world championships. …
The women’s team will report immediately to Plymouth, Michigan, to begin its world title defense with Friday’s opener against archrival Canada, the reigning Olympic champion.
(ESPN, March 29, 2017)
There’s no denying their triumph, especially considering that USA Hockey used to pay each player a paltry $6,000 for a six-month residency every four years (i.e., only in preparation for the Olympics). Indeed, it’s notable that, in addition to their annual salary, the women players will be getting the same travel benefits and insurance coverage their male counterparts have always enjoyed.
That said, there’s no compensating for the emotional distress USA Hockey willfully inflicted upon these players over the past 15 months of negotiations. Therefore, it would not surprise me if they celebrate this triumph against their own governing body by performing like scrubs against opposing teams at the forthcoming IIHF World Championships.
NOTE: All major (non-Olympic) tournaments in Tennis and Track and Field feature both male and female athletes. I suspect this is the primary reason women now enjoy equal pay and benefits in those sports. By contrast, the major tournaments in Hockey and Soccer feature male and female athletes separately … and unequally.
All women professional sports would benefit greatly from the kind of exposure women Tennis players get from the unisex arrangement of their major tournaments. For example, even though they have a long way to go, women Basketball players are enjoying increasing popularity by having their NCAA tournament and WNBA playoffs scheduled as one major sporting event, respectively, with those of their male counterparts. This is leading inexorably to higher pay and better benefits.
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Boycotting women hockey players…