Episode Transcript
[00:00:22] Speaker A: 4000 p97 welcome to week nine.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I apologize for my voice. I managed to have lost it pretty significantly here. But I was able to get this.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Interview done a couple weeks back with, with someone I'm really excited to share with you. Today we're going to be revisiting our discussion of barriers, barriers to entry in the hockey industry and those experienced by both players and organizations and institutions. And we have an excellent selection of guests to speak to this right this week, starting with today. I think a lot of people are probably pretty familiar with the idea that hockey is a sport with a lot of barriers. Like I'm breaking much news to you when I say to you that it is extremely expensive.
Journeys on the Internet recently have taught me that even perhaps my, my somewhat now dated view of how expensive hockey was, it has actually gotten a lot more expensive in the past five or six years. There's a, there's a TikTok that I saw recently that demonstrated what the most expensive setup for a player and, or, sorry, a skater and a goalie is at Pro Hockey Life. And certainly there are, there are lots and lots and lots of things that have been innovated in the last 10 years. And it comes to hockey equipment that I had no idea about. And the, the cost of equipment, I think is something that most of us are familiar with and certainly is a barrier to entry to playing the game itself. And I don't think I need to spend much time telling you it's expensive. You understand that. So this week we're not going to be talking about expensive hockey gear, though. That is something that I think is already in your mind.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: As we move through this course material.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: We'Re going to be talking about barriers to the professional game itself. Be that this week we are going to be talking to a professional women's hockey player named Jackie Pierre. Her name is spelled J A C Q U I E P I E R R I. If you want to look up her career, Jackie started out playing at Brown University, the Calgary Inferno of the Canadian Women's Hockey League. We discussed the CWHL earlier this semester.
She played professionally in Sweden and she now is playing professionally in Italy in the Italian League and also in the European Women's Hockey League, which is a sort of Champions League of sorts. She plays with the Boson Eagles of the. In the Italian League and she played Champions League hockey again this year as well. So you're gonna hear from Jackie. Jackie is from New Jersey. She has a very, very, very unique perspective on women's hockey. She's played men's hockey, she played boys hockey, she played NCAA Div.1, she played professional women's hockey. She, she is a very, very, very unique person and she also has a, a full time career as well that we get into in, in some detail in this interview as well. So lots to to chew on with Jackie when it comes to barriers that exist to professional women's hockey, certainly or women's entry into the professional hockey industry. And later on this week we'll be talking to Tanisha Singleton of the Black Girl Hockey Club who talks about barriers to entry for people of color when they're trying to enter the game of hockey as fans or as players. Indeed. As well as so lots to talk about this week. I do want to apologize. At points Jackie's audio is a bit scattered as she's in a European Airbnb, I believe at this point that has a little bit sketchy audio. There are a few moments that it gets a little scrambled. Bear with it if it's, if it's lagging a little bit. But with that said, let's move on to Jackie Perry's interview.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: I.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: World where the pain and the.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Fears of like water.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Does freedom comfort you at night?
[00:04:06] Speaker B: We are so lucky to be joined.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Today by Jackie Pier.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Jackie, thanks so much for joining brock Spring Foreign SPMA 4P97. I'm still learning the course codes myself.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: So Jackie, I wanted to start off very, very, very broad. It's a question that I like to ask first of all of all athletes because I think it really does introduce things in a logical fashion. What was your earliest memory playing hockey?
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Okay, good question. So I'm not Canadian. I'm American. So I started pretty late relative to Canadian standards.
My brother went on a school field trip to go skating when we were like he was nine. So I was seven.
And that was the first introduction. Fell in love with it, stuck with it through there. But very random start because in New Jersey hockey isn't very popular. Not like the gta.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Fantastic. So that first introduction to hockey, do you have an earliest memory playing the game in sort of an organized fashion as well.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: So back when I first started, it was like divided ice, learn to skate. So they would break up the ice into lanes. And my mom actually tried to put me in figure skating but it doesn't really fit my personality at all to do figure skating. So I very quickly ended up on like a U9 team playing in New Jersey playing local, local players. So nothing crazy.
But yeah, I fell in love with it really Fast. I mean, hockey is a really special sport.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: So growing up in New Jersey, who were the sort of role models you had?
Who were the local hockey celebrities in the New Jersey youth hockey scene?
[00:06:00] Speaker C: I don't know if we have local celebrities, but I personally was a really big Devils fan.
That was the era of them just like crushing it. I think they had.
I watched them win the cup live when I was 11, and I think a year or two earlier they also won. So we had Broder, I was a big fan of. We had Scott Stevens, I was a huge fan of. Wanted to be, you know, a big time hitter, which does not fit with the girls game, but I tried.
Yeah, we had a lot of good players on that team, the Devils, in that early 2000s era.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: So, yeah, that was. Those were some incredibly stacked teams. Looking back as well, like Niedermayer and all those guys. Did you. Did you model your game on a specific player? You said you like Scott Stevens. Is there another player that you modeled your game after?
[00:06:50] Speaker C: You know, really, I didn't watch that much hockey growing up, which is really weird. But very quickly hockey became like, you know, multiple times a week. It was very hard to find time to like actually sit back and walk watch because I was training all the time. I would say a little bit of Scott Stevens, but I think ultimately that came from being the only girl playing boys hockey. Just wanted to prove that I was tough enough.
So, you know, my game is very much or was starting to transition away from this, but very stay at home defenseman, really like shut down at the blue line, good at like one on one hip checks kind of thing, quick move the puck, not a lot of offense.
And yeah, maybe we can talk about this more later, but like, that's not really that.
Well, we can't hit. But also the women's game is a lot different and dynamic and really requires defensemen to be offensive, to be successful for the team.
So slowly trying to transition my game to be a bit more offensive. But, you know, I. I got the Scott Stevens mindset, so it's awesome.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Let's talk a little bit more about something you brought up there. At what age do you remember or what was the sort of the experience making the switch from boys hockey to girls hockey when you were younger?
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, at that time I'm a little bit older. I'm 31. So at that time there was not a lot of women's hockey, especially in New Jersey. I think there was a little bit more in Canada. I was actually playing on a U19 women's team as a nine year old and one of the better players because there were just so few women and girls playing in New Jersey.
So the options for me when I got more competitive around high school time were either to go away to a prep school in kind of the New England area or to continue to play boys hockey. And I chose to not go away. So I played boys hockey until I went to play at Brown, until I went to play different. So I played boys hockey until I was 18. So, so I went through that transition of, you know, learning how to hit with everybody when we were all the same size. And then, you know, high school time, everyone getting significantly larger than me and just like trying to continue to prove that I was tough enough to be there and, you know, requires a little bit more intelligence to not get stuck in really, you know, difficult spots where you're just going to get smoked.
But I really enjoyed the challenge and I got to keep playing with my, the buddies that I grew up playing with for my whole life. So that was really nice.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: That's fantastic. That's really, really interesting, actually. So you made the switch before heading into the ncaa?
[00:09:26] Speaker C: Correct. My first, like, competitive women's game was my first Div. 1 NCAA game.
And, you know, it's really, it's kind of unfortunate if I could go back and talk to my high school self there, there would definitely be some things I would tell her about learning how to play differently. Because when you're, you know, when I was in midgets trying to prove that I was tough enough, it was a lot of like, you know, focus on the body, make sure you're taking the body big hits, you know, prove against the stereotypes. But when I got to girls hockey, I ended up leading the ECAC in penalties, and I hadn't had more than two penalties in my entire, you know, high school career.
But it's actually extremely challenging against a skilled forward to, to pivot and control them into the wall and take a proper angle instead of just, you know, stepping up and putting your shoulders through their chest. It actually is a lot more difficult.
So that was a big transition for me, but I've slowly figured out I get a few, few less penalties now.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: That's so fascinating. So that's, that's what an unbelievable transition in your life at that. Exactly. In that moment of transition that, you know, in larger parts of your life are transitioning as well. You're heading into university, you're moving away from home. This is a quite a lot of change to occur at One time that the stylistic difference there. I have a lot of questions from students about the women's game stylistically, but let's draw on that one you mentioned right there. So you ended up. So you go to the Div.1 school that you went to, and you end up leading the entire conference. You said in penalty. Is that correct?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah. So embarrassing.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: How long did it take you to sort of fully adjust to the women's game? And maybe what are some things. If you're unfamiliar with the women's game at the NCAA level, what are some things that really stand out as different?
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Well, first of all, like, obviously, I think everyone knows that the checking rules are different. Like, there's officially no checking in women's hockey, but the game is still really physical. And it took me, I would say, at least two seasons of my collegiate career to figure out exactly what situations it's acceptable to be physical. And a lot of that is defensively, you have to pivot and be skating in the same direction as them. You can't counter hit somebody. You have to pivot and then go shoulder to shoulder facing the same direction and then also just against the wall. When you're in a battle in the corner, you almost have to position yourself in a way that you can hold up your opponent. Like, if you're going to pin someone against the wall, I mean, in boys hockey, you can go in and just like, try to knock them over, knock them out of the play, no problem, as long as it's a clean hit. But in women's hockey, you really have to control them into the wall and almost prevent them from falling to not get the penalty.
So you almost have to pre assess their strength. It's actually a really challenging skill that I continue to work on regularly, like engaging in a battle and knowing, you know, will this girl be able to stand up?
How can I pin her without, you know, the ref assuming that something dirty happened? The rules end up being quite inconsistent because it's really difficult for the referees to judge, you know, the roughness of your impact. I guess, like, the hitting rules are a bit different ref to ref, and they're also a bit different conference to conference.
Like, I noticed, you know, in the ncaa, in our conference, in the ecac, very low physicality. When we would play in the Hockey east, when we go out to, like, St. Cloud or up to Boston, we could be a lot more physical. The refs, like the rules were, were interpreted slightly differently.
And in the cwl, when I played in Canada, that was a pretty physical league because we, we had all of the Canadian and American Olympians, so the strength level was very, very high.
And then I played in Sweden and that was very, very low contact.
Just the interpretation of the rules in Europe is different, so it's really dynamic and something I'm still feeling out here in Italy.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: That's fascinating from a hockey point of view, but also from a coaching point of view. When was the first time you sort of received women's hockey specific coaching? Because everything you mentioned there seems like something you'd actually change and adapt your. Your game when you've made the switch so late in life. When. When was the first time you realized, wow, I actually need to relearn a lot of this stuff?
[00:14:07] Speaker C: I would say, unfortunately, I don't think I received that coaching from, like, official coaches. It was something I just had to sort out.
You know, I think that's a part of the women's game is a lack of resources. And, you know, we can't pay our coaches very well. And so we get sometimes, you know, coaches of different experience.
So that, that wasn't direct coaching that I received at any point. I know in college.
Yeah, my coach. My coach wasn't very aware of that sort of nuance.
She wasn't able to provide that kind of guidance. So I just had to sort of get there on my own. So it probably took a lot longer than it should have.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: So that's something that we have a few questions about, which is, which is the coaching? And when you were going through the women's, sort of the boys hockey world, did you have any point during that experience identify professional women's hockey as a. As a career for you in the future, or was that something that sort of occurred to you in the ncaa?
[00:15:11] Speaker C: No, that's a great. That's a great question.
No, my entire plan was to play Division 1 hockey. And that was the end game.
I thought surely that was like the end point of my career at 22, when you graduate. And it was just by chance that my best friend from Brown had moved up to Calgary and was playing pro there. And I put it in quotes because my first year in the cwhl, it was extremely amateur in terms of I had to pay to try out. There was no assistance with my visa.
We were playing a really, really difficult game schedule that was just really not conducive to performance.
Three game series. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday against the same team while we were working full time during the week. So I'm also an engineer by education, so I was also working full time when I was in Canada. So the first time that professional women's hockey came on my radar was after I was already retired, after I was done at Brown.
And then I was kind of like, well, I mean, here's another opportunity to play and I can kind of feel it out. And I know a lot of Olympians are playing up there. It could be really good. Hockey could be fun.
So, yeah, I mean, thankfully things have changed a lot in the last 10 years and now there's several leagues where women can look to play.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: That's so much to go off there. So many questions that have been asked that you've sort of answered right there. But I want to talk specifically about the CWHL and your arrival there. So again, you mentioned sort of in passing there, I think a really amazing facet of your life.
You're working as a full time engineer while playing in Calgary.
Can you speak to that experience, what that was like? I mean, that and then CWHL sort of league as a whole. What was the sort of experience that you had playing throughout those years and trying to juggle a full time career in the oil and gas world of Alberta and this extremely difficult playing schedule that you were playing with the Inferno?
[00:17:20] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, when I look back at that first year, I get like exhausted just thinking about it. Like, I'm not really sure how I managed to do it. And I think that really illuminates how I think we lose a lot of talent out of the women's game because it's not even that people aren't able to do it. It's like a lot of people aren't willing to put in the intense time schedule that was required to play at that point. So that first year, like I said, I had to pay for, for tryouts and I also had to pay for a gym. We didn't have gym access. We didn't have, you know, just like so many things where it was really a big step down from NCAA resources.
And so, you know, there were a few other players on the team. Chelsea Purcell, who ended up being the manager of the Markham Thunder, and you know, just a lot of, like Erica Crom is one of my best friends, and Jessica Campbell. We all just kind of like took it upon ourselves to try to develop at least out in Calgary, what we were, what we were, what we're doing, our professionalism, I guess.
So we were able to sort of develop a partnership with the Flames. And then, you know, more Olympians came and joined our team.
We were able to sort of bring in some volunteers that did marketing for us, and we were able to build up a little bit more of a fan base. We built a partnership with the youth program in Calgary, which I think is like, one of the things I'm most proud of having been involved in, that we rebranded the entire youth hockey program in Alberta to the Junior Inferno. And we started a mentorship program where the players were going out to practices and just providing that, like, role model leadership that none of us had when we were kids. Like, I didn't know a single female coach.
I only knew one player on the U.S. olympic, Olympic team because she was in a poster with Mark Messier on my wall. Like, I'd never seen her play. So I think that sort of, you know, establishment of like, direct role models for kids was really, really important. So by the time I was leaving the Inferno, we had really changed the landscape of what was happening. So by the time I was leaving, I was trying to think now definitely wasn't paying any fees. We had access to a gym, we had access to a trainer. So things that were allowing us to be a lot more professional, which was really important.
The game schedule shifted to two game series, which was a lot more manageable in terms of just like physical, physically being able to perform at a high level.
And we were winning prize money. So when we won the championship, we were actually able to win a little bit of money. When we won first place, we were able to win a little bit of money.
They established an All Star game.
I got the opportunity to do that one year that I played in the cwhl. And that was a really professional, professionally put on, I don't know, game. We had about 9,000 fans there, which was really, really something cool. That was in the Toronto area. I think we're at the Air Canada Center. Is it still called that? I don't even remember.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: I think it's called called Scotiabank arena now or Squishmaker. I can't remember. Squishmake arena. Replace. My students will crucify me for not knowing that. But Squishmake something now Squishmake arena for us.
[00:20:51] Speaker C: Okay, sorry, I got totally lost on a ramble.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: No, you're doing a great job answering a lot of questions that we've had submitted about, you know, the legacy of the cwhl. I had a lot of questions asking, you know, what do you believe the legacy of the league was? And I know it's a question that's sort of Canadian specific, but you've sort of played in so many different locations and contexts was one question I'VE got here asks about playing in Canada. Did you. Did you feel a difference coming to Canada when you started playing in the cwhl? From a career played in the United States.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: So I've never played professionally in the United States. I've only ever played. Well, I've played professionally in Canada, Sweden, and now in Italy.
But I really, really love Canada. I was there for six years.
I love how hockey is on the forefront of everything. You know, in the US it's really hard, even during playoffs to get a bar to put on the Stanley cup or to put on the NHL. And everywhere you look in Canada, it's on, which I really thought was fantastic.
But, yeah, I mean, I enjoyed living in Canada. I could see myself going back there eventually. But, yeah, so I can't speak to the U.S. i know. So for those who aren't familiar with the women's hockey scene, the CWHL was the precursor to the PWPhA, which is the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association. It's a really tough acronym to say, but basically the Canadian Women's Hockey League was a nonprofit organization which had a really interesting organizational model. So it was a central ownership centered under a nonprofit. Each team was responsible for fundraising an equal amount of dollars. There were six, maybe seven teams when I when it folded.
And all of that money that was fundraised locally was pooled into a central fund and redistributed for travel expenses and prize money among the players at the end of its process. You know, my last season, the fifth or sixth year that the CW was around, and then it folded. And the only other option in North America was the nwhl, the National Women's Hockey League, which was started on a different basis of being able to pay the players.
And they had an individual team ownership structure. So more like you're familiar with in men's sports, that it was, you know, each team's independently owned.
However, I never played in a league, but from what I've heard, there were a lot of the same challenges that were in the cwhl and not most importantly, a lot of the promises about payment weren't fulfilled.
So a lot of the players were under contract to get paid and never got paid.
And in addition, you know, just the normal challenges of, like, couldn't get proper ice time, still waiting for beer league to get off the ice to be able to play your professional game.
Just, like, elements of disrespect from that. You know, we're keeping it amateur in a way that I'm not really sure why those things still Happen because they're not always financial issues.
We had trouble with that in the CWHL as well. We had some sort of relationship breakdown with our home rink, and our home rink would regularly put us out. In Calgary, there's Windsport, which is part of the Olympic facility, and they have one great rink that's Olympic ice with beautiful 5,000 seating, stadium great for spectators.
And then they have three practice rinks that are NHL ice and only have stands behind the net. And because some sort of relationship breakdown with our manager, who was essentially a volunteer, because we couldn't pay anyone at that point in the league's development, we would often get bumped from the Olympic ice, from the stadium seating to the practice rink for literally, literally men's league just for just out of disrespect, just for no reason other than they didn't get along with our manager.
So things like that became really challenging for getting fans in the door. I would be pissed if I was paying 10, 15 bucks to sit, you know, on the one side of a rink where, you know, it's so clearly a practice rink. It just.
So some of those challenges were the same in the NWHL from what I've heard. So just, you know, really terrible ice times, just not able to, like, perform at your best. And then I also heard there were some problems with insurance, which is a really big deal. Deal in the U.S.
so that's, that's.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: That's. I mean, if we could just dwell on that for a little bit.
Can you speak to the level of frustration that builds up in those locker rooms when issues like that arise? I mean, you're dealing with athletes that have competed at the Olympics, athlete like yourself that have gone through Div 1 programs in the United States. How frustrating is that when you see all the collection of talent that was in some of these leagues and you're dealing with petty arena politics that you wouldn't associate with, you know, a minor midget team in most Canadian cities?
[00:26:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I have nothing, nothing more to say. It's exactly how you would expect. It's extremely frustrating and really discouraging because it, you know, it seems that we, you know, take two steps forward and one step back. So.
And, you know, those.
Those elements that aren't financial continued everywhere that I've played. So in Sweden and in Italy. And, you know, now that I've had this European experience, I've also gotten some exposure to some of the national teams in Europe. So for those who aren't familiar, the US And Canada and Finland, I would say, are in kind of their own bracket of exceptionalism.
All three of those teams have decades of culture of success.
And then you have, you know, five, six teams below that who are making headway but have inconsistent resourcing.
And then, you know, from maybe the eighth team in the world down, the amount of disrespect that some of these teams have to face is really interesting. I mean, you have people who have to pay to play for their national team. You have, you know, I know for Team Italy, I'm playing with most of Team Italy now.
They recently had a pre Olympic, pre qualifier tournament, and they shoved five players in a single hotel room to save money. I mean, you can't properly sleep before a game when you're dealing with four other people in the same room. You can't. I mean, it's a little silly, but, like, you can't go to the bathroom when you need to. And before a game, I mean, some of those things really impact your performance.
So they're almost fighting two battles. They're fighting the fact that, you know, they're trying to play at the top level without having the same resources that we have in North America in terms of coaching and exposure.
And then on top of that, they're fighting their federation, who doesn't give them respect.
And, you know, I think in the pro level, it's a really interesting conversation because at the pro level, when you look at, like, you know, men's professional hockey, Women's professional hockey, 100 years, more history, a lot more fans, that's income. Of course we're going to make less money. No question. No one's looking to, like, turn around and get, you know, Matthew's salary next year. It's, like, not what we're looking for.
But, you know, when you're talking about the national team level, it's federation money. It's basically a nonprofit. Their mission is to spread the game.
And you have men's players who are able to make money in the private sector as professional players and women's players who don't get anything from the private sector. And the men still get more from that nonprofit, significantly more, both financially and in terms of, you know, just silly resourcing, like respectful things like, you know, ice times and access to training facilities.
It's really frustrating and disheartening, and I don't know what it will take to change, but it's still very far from where it needs to be.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Well, Jackie, this is really good to hear this stuff. I mean, the way you phrase that is, I think and again, we're speaking to a class of future, hopefully hockey, you know, administrators and leaders.
There's a resource issue, certainly, I think you've spoke to that. I mean, I think that we're aware of the fact that there's resource inequality, but the respect gap is, I think, generally speaking, not understood at the level that you just broke down there, that, yes, there's a resource question, but really we're talking about things that boil down to respect. Like, at that level, especially when you're talking about the federation level, there is no excuse for it. There's really no excuse. You saw the women's soccer team in the United States fighting that battle at the federation level rather successfully, but at great personal peril to themselves, like at great cost to themselves. And something you find so often with women's sport is something that speaks to your experience where a lot of these women's players are able to fight these battles and are unfortunately expected to fight them themselves because they happen to be professionals in their own fields. You're in the world of engineering. You know, you're spoke to the GM of the Inferno, who I believe was a practicing lawyer at the time. Like, they come with lots of skills that, you know, and other fields where this stuff is just. We're Talking about the 1950s here in terms of attitudes towards women in a workplace which, you know, what a professional hockey says. This, of course, this is.
So, again, thank you so much for the way you articulated that. And I encourage students when they're out in the world working in hockey to consider that question of respect first and foremost and not hide behind the sort of resource question over and over and over again. That's a great way. But I want to talk about your move to Europe. I have probably 17 or 18 questions about Europe.
When did you decide to make the jump to Europe? Because your first landing spot was Sweden, is that correct?
[00:31:01] Speaker C: My first landing spot. So actually, the move to Europe was not a hockey decision.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: So.
[00:31:09] Speaker C: I played five seasons in the cwhl, and the Inferno was becoming a really competitive team. We were getting a lot more national team players, and I was starting to really struggle with balancing working full time and playing, you know, just injuries and just fatigue. There was a burnout, and I personally am really passionate about sustainability, and being in oil and gas was really challenging for me.
It was kind of. I mean, it sounds a bit silly, but it was kind of like, you know, this is like the devil's exchange. Like, if I want to play hockey, then I got to work for a gas company in Alberta, it's just what I have to do. But it wasn't what I wanted to do forever.
And there are really good people out in Alberta who are trying to work on solutions, but it's just the way the economy is there and what the resources are there. So I decided I wanted to go back for my master's degree in sustainable energy. My undergrad was also in sustainable energy, but I wanted some way to transition out of the natural gas company that.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: I was working on.
[00:32:10] Speaker C: So I found a university program in Europe that was interdisciplinary. My first year was in Barcelona and my second year was in Stockholm. So in my first year, I had retired from the cw.
And then I was playing beer league with some like, I don't know how to explain it, some old guys in Barcelona and we're having beers after, after just like scrimmaging. And the guys are like, do you want to make friends that are your age? And I was like, yeah, obviously, like, I'm in Europe, please. They were like, oh, like, go. Go check out this, this roller hockey team. They're really good. And, you know, it could be fun for you to try it out. So I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll go try it out.
But there was a language miscommunication, and when I showed up, they had skates in my size and a jersey with my name on it. So I signed with a pro roller hockey team.
So I ended up playing a season of roller hockey. And then while I was there, a team in Sweden contacted me asking if I wanted to come play in the playoffs up in Sweden. And it just kind of like, you know, planted a little seed for me.
I didn't end up going. It conflicted with roller hockey. But my second year of my master's program was in Stockholm, and I immediately just started contacting teams and I ended up playing with Ste.
And I had planned to do that only for one season because I was just going to finish my master's and then go on with real life.
But then Covid happened, so I stayed two seasons and yeah, I don't know, I can't quit. I still love the game. So I'm still playing.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: That is such an amazing. So roller hockey, I mean, truly, I didn't know that. That's fantastic. Spain has such a long and really under, certainly under reported history of roller hockey in North America. Like Juan Antonio Samaranc, the IOC presidents from Spain. He was a professional roller hockey player back in the day. I mean, it's. It's a. It's a total world Unto itself. That is so cool. What was your experience playing in that professional roller hockey league?
[00:34:14] Speaker C: Like?
It was really fun.
I did not learn any Spanish while I was in Barcelona. And in Barcelona, they speak Catalan, so I was at, like, just a double disadvantage of just not even knowing what language people were speaking. So playing for that team, there were only, like, two or three girls that could speak English.
So the bonding was a bit different. But you can still bond over sport. I mean, you don't always need to be able to speak speak.
So that experience was really fun. It was a lot of traveling around and, you know, it was fun to, like, be a stud on the team. I was able to be, like, a goal scorer and to be impactful and to be helpful to the team. And I think I ended up having to leave the country just before the finals, which was really unfortunate. But we, you know, we almost won the Spanish national championship. I think the year after I left, they won the national championship. So, yeah, it was just a really fun experience. But I don't know. Roller skating, it's totally different.
They play four on four. It's on, like. I don't know, this, like, plastic.
Yeah. So first practice trying to learn how to stop. Really hilarious. Not good. Got it sorted, though.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: That's amazing. And then, so you end up playing two seasons in Sweden, and I have a lot of questions here about Italy, and I have a lot of questions that sort of speak to the European women's game as a whole, certainly as a professional product. I have a couple questions. I'm looking at about three or four of them, and they're asking about the way that the game is sort of presented in Europe and whether or not there's anything that you like more about the way the game is presented in Europe and maybe perhaps marketed in Europe that you think North America should try, or vice versa.
[00:35:56] Speaker C: In terms of marketing. That's a really interesting question.
So, I mean, I can speak to the organization, like the league structure differences. I think that's a good place to start.
So I kind of got into a little bit how the CWHL was that central ownership model in Sweden. It's individual ownership, more similar to a men's professional league. And the women's teams are actually owned by the men's teams, which has its upsides and downsides because, you know, we're at the whim of how the men are performing and at the whim of how the men's profits are. But it works really well for a lot of the clubs up there.
And in terms of Marketing.
I think it was a massive advantage to have, you know, small towns in Sweden or smaller cities in north of Sweden where, you know, the men's team is the heart of their culture.
To have women branded with the same, same logo and advertised by the same channels was hugely advantageous.
They were able to. Those were the clubs that were able to pay players, which made a really significant difference for, you know, bringing in foreign players, you know, just all sorts of resourcing things.
However, there were still clubs like our club. For example, the STE club was not affiliated with the men's team.
So our marketing resources were someone's mom running our social media. That was the gap in terms of what was being presented and that has a lot of difficulties. It becomes really difficult to access content.
I think this was true in the early days of the CWH as well. It's really hard to be a women's hockey fan because there's no consistent channel. Even if you're already diehard and you want to watch the games, often there's not a live stream. Often there's not.
You know, we had, maybe I think by my last year we had four games per team that were broadcast on Sportsnet, which was amazing, you know, in terms of production. We had Cassie Campbell and like, you know, professional announcers and professional camera people.
But even those games aren't advertised properly to get a fan base. You know, I remember watching on Sportsnet at the bar with some of my colleagues and they put basically like a PowerPoint slide of Natalie Spooner just standing there and it was like up soon on Sportsnet, you know, this like women's game, like put a highlight, put a highlight clip in there. Like put something. There's. So there's like make it how you would advertise for the men's game. We're already starting at a disadvantage of being unknown.
And then it's, you know, compounds when it's not advertised properly and then you can't watch the games and then there's no name recognition. There's a lot of challenges with marketing in the women's game. Thankfully, social media has really changed the landscape on that.
I think access to individual players is really where the women's game is at right now. We have a few kind of celebrity players, obviously Kendall Coyne, who got to skate in the, the NHL All Star game, you know, her social media presence. Hillary Knight, Marie Philippe Pullin. There's. There's just like a lot of players that have big name recognition. And I think most of the marketing happens through their individual Channels right now, like a lot of those players, have much bigger followings than all of our leagues and all our teams.
And then in Italy there's like no marketing at all for the women's game. There's nothing, there's nothing happening. We're not affiliated with the men's team. The men's team is actually quite popular in Boltano, the city that I'm at, and their men's team is quite successful.
And all of their marketing, I don't know the infrastructure yet, I'm still only a month here. But all of their marketing and advertising is very professional.
They have access to amazing facilities.
But the women's game is our captain running our social media.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: And that's something that so often people look to the women's game, not just women's hockey, but women's sport in general.
One of the things that women's sports has done very well is engagement on social media. And it certainly seems like you were mentioning there perhaps a growth element for women's hockey is that direct access to players.
And I think the players that you've mentioned there, there is a far more authentic, I guess would be the word I would use can connection to these players than you see in certainly in the men's hockey world where, you know, I. I actually know a lot more about the players you just mentioned as people. And I think that that's a huge asset that women's hockey has, is that they're willing to market their stars as people and not just, you know, people who are selling you. As we've discussed, Sidney Crosby selling bread as one of his main endorsements is when he was younger.
That's something that, you know, men's hockey is sort of stuck in. Is how do we, or rather I should probably say, do we dare or do we risk marketing our stars as players? Whereas the women's game seems to have jumped right into that. And I think that that's a really positive step.
That's disheartening to hear about in Europe in your situation, but it's good to know that the team you're playing on is a professional sort of situation. I've got a lot of questions about that team specifically and playing hockey in Italy. I've got a question that asks about the style of game. Is it.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Is it a.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Is it a high contact league? Is it a low contact league? Is it. Is it highly skilled? Is it a lot of players that are young? What's the sort of like, because you're very experienced, you've seen hockey played so so many different locations. What would be your sort of appraisal of what kind of game is played in Italy?
[00:41:48] Speaker C: So we have only played in European, European Women's Hockey League games so far. So the way that the, the way Italian hockey and European hockey is set up for the bulk of Europe, it's like men's soccer in Europe. There's like leagues within the country and then the top teams from those countries play in a Champions league.
So the EWHL is like a Champions league. So we're the only team out of Italy that competes outside of Italy. So we play Kazakhstan, Germany, Czech, Slovenia, Hungary.
We get to travel lots.
But within Italy there are I think 10 teams.
And my understanding, I haven't, again, I haven't like played any of these games yet, but my understanding is there's a very significant drop off in the level of play.
And again, I think that comes back to resourcing. I don't think that, you know, athletes in Italy are less capable or have less potential than they do in other countries. I think it's. There are very few women and girls registered to play in Italy. I think there's only 300 in the whole country or 350, something like that.
And so when you get to the competitive level, you don't have the depth that drives competitiveness in the way that you do in Canada.
I think in Canada, Canada and the U.S. could probably field three full rosters and they would rank, you know, one to six.
There's so much depth and competition and thankfully so much growth in registration numbers for younger players and things like that. So in the cwhl we didn't have anyone younger than post college. There were a few exceptions, but pretty much everyone was like 22 and up at least.
When I got to Sweden, it was mostly mid to late 20s players who were playing on the national teams of their respective countries.
And then we had one or two superstar teenagers.
In Italy, half of our roster is teenagers.
Yeah. So it's a really, really significant difference. And that comes with a lot of challenges, as you can imagine. I mean, just the skill gap from elite national team players to a 14 year old who's still learning, has so much potential and so much room to grow. But they're 14, you know, it becomes really difficult to properly, I don't know, formulate a practice that you, your skill development and you know, tactic development, it becomes really challenging.
Yeah, so it's quite different here.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: That's really stunning information. So there are players as young as 14 sometimes in your league?
[00:44:36] Speaker C: Yeah, that's Correct.
Just before we started recording the call, I kind of mentioned that I'm. I'm coaching today. Coaching.
So 10 girls on our team are on the Italian national team, which is awesome, super incredible. And our coach is also on the national team. And today the Olympic qualifications, pre Olympic qualifications start for the bracket that team Italy is in. So I think they're playing Spain today to try and qualify for the Beijing Olympics.
So we have no, no coach on the ice and I'm going to be running practice for five teenagers essentially.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Because.
[00:45:15] Speaker C: There'S just no resources.
So it's tough.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: I mean, Jackie, that's. You're essentially player coach in Europe playing for Italy's sort of hockey, Real Madrid, it seems like that just go. Are sort of a European club on top of being regional power as well. That's really, that's fantastic. I mean that's such a strange, a strange sort of way of evaluating a career starting in, you know, boys hockey until you were 17. Now you're essentially helping run a program in Italy. This is a truly a fantastic journey. I think that we'll try and I could keep you for three hours, but I'll try and sort of end on broader sort of questions here. I've got one that asks about what advice you would give to a young female hockey player who wants to play as a professional. What advice would you give them starting right now?
[00:46:07] Speaker C: That's a big question. One piece of advice I think it would be to not underestimate the incremental nature of growth.
Sometimes it feels like you're not getting results. But keep pushing at whatever you need to work at and you will get better and you'll be able to reach your goals if you stick with them and are consistent with your training.
That's for all hockey players, I think, not just female hockey players.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: Incremental nature growth. That's a really, that's a nice. That's a great sentiment. And I've got another question here that asks about sort of how you see the game growing in the next 10 years. If you were speaking to that young female hockey player and they were say 10 years old and can you imagine a future 10 years in the future where they have far more professional options at the age of 20 than you had?
[00:46:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's going to be completely different for the 10 year olds of today. And it makes me really excited to think about, I think in 10 years there's going to be a professional league where girls can make a living off of hockey. It's not going to be millions of dollars, but it's going to be enough that they can, you know, train full time and focus on hockey and they're going to have a fan following I think in 10 years.
Maybe that's optimistic. But I think, you know, we kind of like touched on marketing a little bit. But I think a huge element of, I think it's a positive the way that you, the way that you feel it is in terms of the access to the players. But I think it was also bred out of necessity in terms of a lot of sports editors are guys and the only stories that they'll publish are, are personal pieces only when there's, you know, some background story of challenge overcome. They're not, they're not often just posting our scores or posting game recaps.
So I think social media is completely changing the dynamic of that. And I think for girls who are 10 year olds now, you can follow my whole Instagram feed is women's sports because there are channels, non conventional channels of writers and journalists who just focus on women's sports. Completely changes access for 10 year old to watch Hillary Knight, you know, on individual skills day and to see what Brianna Decker is doing in the gym.
The whole landscape has completely changed and that's just going to keep getting better in 10 years. Because I think society is also at kind of a critical point where, you know, I think in Canada especially sportsnet is really starting to get on board and TSN too, of showing women's, women's highlights, of realizing that there's, you know, there's money in the women's game.
So hopefully in 10 years it'll be on, on that upward trajectory still.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: And final question, I have a question here that asks you, would you ever consider coaching? Would coaching be something that you would be interested in, whether in North America or in Europe?
[00:49:03] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. I think one of the reasons I'm still playing the game, so Italy is hosting the 2026 Olympics. So the national team here, the way women's hockey works, they get automatic qualification as the host nation.
So part of the reason that I wanted to keep playing and to keep, you know, stay involved in the game is there are all these young girls who don't have any resources who could be Olympians. And I want to be a part of, you know, hopefully still playing, but if not still playing, I want to be part of their training, I want to be part of their development. I want to be part of their, their access to the game that I love. So it's definitely coaching at some point. I Don't know if it'll be a profession for me, but obviously I'm really passionate about sharing the game. I think it's a great unifier. I think sport is a great, I.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: Don'T know.
[00:49:58] Speaker C: Microcosm of society. I think it's.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: It's.
[00:50:02] Speaker C: So it's more than just a game and it'll be really hard for anyone to fully get me out of hockey. I think I'll be playing till I can't walk and I'll be involved in some capacity for as long as I can be.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Jackie, thank you so much for joining us. I want to thank you on behalf of 4P97 and on behalf of all of everyone here at Brock University and wish you well in the season.
[00:50:26] Speaker C: Thanks.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: So there's so much there.
From what Jackie just mentioned. There's a couple things I wanted to bring your attention to, certainly that I think will enable you to do your form responses and your audio response a little bit easier. I wanted to bring your attention to when she mentioned the issue of federation money paying for various things. This is something that I think is really important for us to understand here, here and to really appreciate what she's describing there. Now she's describing the Italian Hockey Federation, which we know not to be perhaps the. The wealthiest of hockey federations, but she's describing here that there is no financial reason in terms of the way the money is distributed from the double IHF to the federation itself, for the federation to treat women's hockey in Italy that way. Perhaps you have an idea of what the other ways in which nations prioritize hockey programs. You think to yourself, well, in the Canadian case or in the American case, perhaps that there is a larger justification towards spending money on the men's program than the women's. There isn't. But perhaps that's something that is kicking around in your head.
That's just not the case in a country like Italy where the men's program itself is a fraction of the size of even the Czech program. So even in this situation, you see what she describes there, which is to essentially say that lack of respect. Not now. She mentions her time going through the cwhl. I mean, this was an ostensibly a professional hockey league with some of the best players in the history of the women's game were playing in that league at that time. And the things that she was dealing with there, there's a lot to be said there. Jackie is an extremely generous person with her storytelling and off camera, she was sharing some stuff as well about her time in the NCAA and how difficult it is right now to describe how the game gap between the NCAA program in terms of resources to the professional game. And you know, she mentioned things like, you know, getting sticks and pants, shells and hats, helmets and things like that paid for. I mean that's just a huge day to day struggle when it comes to women's professional hockey. Now that does not mean that the professional game is degrading in any sense. It just means that there, these are real barriers. So again, take all of what she said into consideration here. It's a perspective you're not likely to hear very often, that of an American who went Div 1 played in Europe. There's very few people with her exact pathway and there's a, also a professional four year trained engineer. And that's a very, very, very rare sort of skill set. And combined with being an athlete. So again, lots to chew on there with Jackie. If there's parts that you, you remember from that or a part that you really enjoy, make sure you write it down. That way it'd be easier when you're doing your audio responses of your own. That's an easy habit to get into right now. And, and we don't have many left of these. We're heading towards the end of semester. And again, if you've got a question, come and see me during office hours. Shoot me an email. Make sure you're having a look at the slides. And as we move through these lecture slides, you can always follow along with Jackie's interview, even if you have the slides up, if you've got it in front of your laptop or just look it over after you listen. Either way, it's completely up to you.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: Have a wonderful week and keep working away at those hockey industry assignments.
[00:53:58] Speaker C: Sam.
