It has been once year since the CWHL was formed after the demise of the NWHL, giving national team members such as Sami Jo Small a place to play.
Exactly one year ago, many of the elite players in Canada, including myself, received news via emails that our league was folding. The former NWHL, the league started after the inaugural Olympics in 1998 as a place for us to hone our skills and to be able to play against the best players in the world, was suddenly no longer.
The former owners of the NWHL teams decided to take a hiatus for the 2007-2008 season to determine how they could make the league profitable — and I don't blame them.
Most of the former owners loved the female game and put in a substantial amount of their own money year after year to try to give their players the best environment. However, the tap was all out of water. The owners just couldn't continue to sustain loses year after year without a light at the end of the tunnel.
And so that was it...no more league.
Sometimes out of the most desperate situations come the most innovative of ideas. And out of the ashes of the death of the NWHL was born a new league run by the players, for the players, newly named the CWHL (Canadian Women's Hockey League)
It wasn't born in some board room, or at a consultant's office, but rather at the gym, in the rinks and via emails. Players were forced into action. We needed a place to play and we only had a couple of months to figure it out. It was June and we needed to be on the ice in September. And so we, as Canada's elite players, many with Olympic Gold medals and World Championships to our name, rallied to raise funds, find ice time and hire coaches. The work was exhaustive, the hours were long, but what we have created is the future of women's hockey.
The CWHL is a not-for-profit RCAAA registered league in which the funds are raised through the middle and are equally distributed to all seven teams through Ontario and Quebec. We had to raise half a million dollars just to scrape by, but like all elite athletes, we were used to overreaching our goals.
We are incredibly competitive when we step on the ice, but I am proud to say that once we are in the board room, the players of the CWHL work hard together to ensure that all seven teams are professionally run.
And so thanks to the players, and some incredible support from countless volunteers and community people, we made it through our first year and are excitingly looking forward to planning our second.
There were plenty of hiccups and the learning curve was extensive, but in the end the work was worth it. The CWHL's elite teams are now a place where not only the current generation of Olympic stars can hone their skills, but where the next generation of girls can aspire to play.