U.S. captain Kendall Coyne Schofield says women's hockey 'deserves better' after world hockey championship canceled
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April 23, 2021, 8:09 PM
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Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleUnited States women's hockey national team captain Kendall Coyne Schofield is tired of saying it "and even more exhausted from feeling it," but "women's hockey, once again, deserves better."
Players across the world were stunned on Wednesday when the IIHF and Hockey Canada announced that the IIHF Women's World Championship in Nova Scotia was canceled for the second year in a row. The event was scheduled to begin May 6; the IIHF and Hockey Canada have pledged to try to find new dates for the tournament later this summer.
"This is our Stanley Cup," Coyne Schofield told ESPN on Friday. "Can you imagine getting to the Stanley Cup Final, and before getting on the plane, [someone] saying, 'You know what, it's canceled, and we don't know when or if it can even happen'? It's devastating. ... I almost hope young girls aren't seeing this because I don't want them to feel this. It's extremely challenging to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep pushing, but the reason we do is so they don't have to experience this one day. It's exhausting, it really is. It's difficult in this situation knowing the outcome could have been different if decisions were made earlier."
The call to cancel was made by the government in Nova Scotia just one day before participating countries were set to arrive for the tournament, which featured strict COVID-19 protocols, including an eight-day quarantine. Nova Scotia cited 25 new COVID-19 cases in the province on Wednesday, which brought the active caseload to 79.
Both American and Canadian players learned the news when they were on the ice at pretournament camps in their respective countries.
"When you see tears streaming down your teammates' eyes, your coaches' eyes, your general managers' eyes, you know how much work everyone put into getting into this moment," Coyne Schofield said. "And we got to that moment successfully; there were no positive cases. We held up our end of the bargain; we did everything that was asked of us."
According to sources, two teams, Japan and Russia, were already en route to Canada on charter flights.
Sources say some American locations, such as Texas, could step up to host a rescheduled tournament, but since Hockey Canada was officially awarded the job of host, organizers will look to find a solution in Canada first.
"We all had been training so hard for two years now for this opportunity," Canadian defenseman Renata Fast told ESPN. "We thought there was no chance it could be canceled. We had all done our seven days of isolation before we got to Nova Scotia. Then we were tested every day. For it to be robbed for us, the day before other teams fly in, it was just like, why? There was anger and frustration; why is this happening to us again? And there were no answers for us."
The national team players in Canada and the U.S. do not play in the NWHL, as they are part of the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association -- a group that is holding out and fighting for a North American professional league that can pay players a living wage. Nurse pointed out that events like the world championship are "really all we have."
"When things like this happen, cancellations happen, brands, investors, partners look at it and say, 'How can we invest in women's sports when it's never seen? How are we getting a return on investment?'" Canadian forward Sarah Nurse told ESPN. "Last year, I had a situation where I wasn't paid my sponsorship deal because the world championships were canceled. They saw it as me not holding up my end of the agreement. It's something that's very unfortunate but probably happens more than you think in women's sports."
Added Coyne Schofield: "A lot of sponsors do look to the women's world championships as the opportunity for their brands to be supported by the athletes. So when the world championships don't go on, the brands don't get the support from their athletes that they expected to, these brands start to look in different directions -- because there is not much programming in women's hockey."
With this cancellation, there has not been a senior women's international event in 740 days. There has, however, been programming on the men's side, including the world juniors U20 men's tournament in Edmonton, Alberta, in December 2020. The U18 boys' tournament is scheduled to take place later this month in Texas -- after USA Hockey moved it from Michigan months in advance, knowing the way Michigan's governmental restrictions were trending.
