Fans don't like it, but PWHL parity is the league's primary concern
The outrage at the PWHL expansion draft plans is coming through at the highest of decibels right now.
On the one hand, it's expected. Teams that have spent the better part of two seasons building up their teams to compete for a Walter Cup are now being told everyone on their roster save their top three choices to protect is now free for the expansion teams in Vancouver and Seattle to scoop up and call their own immediately.
It hardly seems fair, but again, you have been told this was going to happen for months now.
From the very first mention of expansion, the message from the league has been consistent. Yes, the league was very interested in expanding as soon as it was convinced it could do so, as long as it didn't come at the cost of the level of play the league had established.
But perhaps just as important, if not just behind that first priority, was maintaining the parity that has made the league so riveting through two regular seasons.
Consider that neither a first nor a second place regular season team has yet to make a PWHL Final and you see just how little gap there is between the top and the bottom of the league.
The Boston Fleet failed to make the playoffs this year but finished this season with the exact same number of points as the two teams that will be vying for this year's Walter Cup.
That closeness in talent, that parity, is what keeps a fan base locked in on the day-to-day goings on in a league. It builds excitement and disappointment and all the things that make following professional sports so important to those who do it.
It's why every time PWHL Executive Vice President of Business Operations Amy Scheer or Jayna Hefford, the league's Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations, addressed the public on the topic of expansion, they invariably, almost religiously, mentioned the desire for maintaining that parity, even with two clubs building from scratch.
In short, this was always the plan, and if you are surprised by it, you weren't really paying attention.
Of course, we understand why existing teams' fanbases would balk at losing players they consider their own, but that's where the PWHL is different than the NHL or the NBA or the NFL or any other league that has individual team ownership.
This league is owned by the Mark Walter family. Walter bankrolls all six original teams just as he is paying for the two new ones coming in. He pays their salaries, their operating costs and their arena rents. He pays for everything.
There is no local ownership in the PWHL, though that may come one day when the Walter family chooses to divest itself of some or all of the teams that they currently own.
But right now, there is no local ownership. There is only league ownership, so it only makes sense that any move made to expand the league would be done so with the league's best interests in mind, not necessarily each individual market, as much as the respective fanbases might want that.
In allowing the existing six teams to protect just three players and then one more after two have already come off an existing team's roster, the league isn't penalizing any one market.
The primary concern is the health of the league as a whole and the league itself is healthiest when all members have an opportunity to win.
So yes, it's going to hurt if a Toronto Sceptres' fanbase loses a popular player like a Sarah Nurse or an Emma Maltais and probably most likely a Hannah Miller who might be interested in jumping at the chance to play for her hometown market in Vancouver.
But if that hurts in Toronto, it won't hurt any less in Montreal if an Erin Ambrose or a Jennifer Gardiner, another B.C.-born player who might fancy the idea of playing in her home market, is lost.
Every team is going to get dinged. Some excellent players are going to be on the move and if the fanbase is unhappy, imagine the players themselves having to uproot their lives. Every existing team is going to lose four very talented players in order to put Vancouver and Seattle on a talent par with the existing six teams.
A total of 24 players are going to be re-distributed to ensure that when Vancouver and Seattle hit the ice in November, they have at least an equal chance of hoisting the Walter Cup that any of the six teams returning for a third season.
And by doing that, the league hopes to maintain the competitive balance that has made the PWHL such a success from Day 1.
mganter@postmedia.com
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