Opinion: It Should Have Never Been The Walter Cup

The PWHL's championship trophy, now dubbed the Walter Cup, should never have been named for the league's financial backer. At the time, the financial leaders behind the PWHL including Mark Walter and Kimbra Walter, Billie Jean King, and Ilana Kloss, all named trophies for themselves.

The Walter Cup is the league championship trophy, and there is the Billie Jean King MVP award, and the Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP award.

None of those individuals have played hockey or been involved beyond the five years leading up to the PWHL's foundation. It was a decision that obliterated the PWHL's ability to recognize historic builders in women's hockey, individuals who gave their lives to maintain the sport, even without billion dollar pocket books to bolster their efforts. Since their inception, the PWHL has shied away from any recognition of historic women, teams, and leagues who came before them, instead placing the league as the beginning, rather than the byproduct, of the efforts to make a sustainable professional environment for women in hockey.

Those efforts began more than 135 years ago. In 1890, Isobel Stanley was the first woman photographed playing ice hockey, although women certainly played prior to the daughter of Lord Stanley, members of the family for which the Stanley Cup is named. But a century later when the NWHL and then PHF were looking for a trophy name, they chose the Isobel Cup. The trophy itself was inscribed reading "“The Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Cup 1875–1963. This Cup shall be awarded annually to the greatest professional women’s hockey team in North America. All who pursue this Cup, pursue a dream; a dream born with Isobel, that shall never die.”

Parallel to the NWHL, the CWHL named their trophy for Canada's second woman to serve as Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson. Clarkson, who donated the Cup to the CWHL, spoke to The Hockey News in 2024 regarding her disappointment surrounding the PWHL's naming decision for the Walter Cup. She also addressed the decision to name the league's top MVP awards for tennis players, not hockey players who kept the game alive for decades.

"I'm very sad about the Clarkson Cup, just very sad about it," Clarkson said at the time. "Nobody did ask me whether they could ever use the (Clarkson) Cup or do anything with the Cup, I have not heard anything from them. I guess if you'e going to tennis players to talk about hockey, then you're not very interested in talking to Canadian women about hockey."

It went against the PWHL's own messaging. At the inaugural PWHL Draft, Billie Jean King herself borrowed a line from the musical 'Hamilton', saying "It's not about a single moment, it's about a movement."

Yet the PWHL made their trophies about the moment, not the movement. They made them about self, instead of the whole. Instead of the message quoted by King, the PWHL followed another idiom, "whoever has the gold makes the rules." It was within Walter, and King, and Kloss' prerogative to name awards for themselves ignoring centuries of effort that came before, but it wasn't right.

The Clarkson Cup and Isobel Cup were just two of a long line of trophies in women's hockey. Perhaps they can come back some day as conference championship trophies. But there were others including the Abby Hoffman Trophy and Lady Bessborough Cup, which again honored women, along with international trophies like the Gower Cup, Sheridan Cup, Lady Greer Cup, and Gurka Cup.

While no one expected the PWHL to utilize a trophy from a forerunning league, the 'Walter Cup' name was flawed from the start.

It's not just about erasing women from the history of the game. The Walter Cup was named for a billionaire family with no prior involvement in the sport. It set precedent in sport as the first major trophy named for an investor with no other involvement. It was the next step in today's professional sporting world where legacies are bought as much as they're earned.

The NHL has the Stanley Cup, the NFL awards the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the NBA the Larry O'Brien Trophy, and MLB the Commissioner's Trophy. In women's sports, the WNBA and NWSL have trophies simply named for thei leagues. 

Instead of honoring the sport, or those who worked centuries to build the game, PWHL founders chose to honor themselves and their business venture. As The Hockey News' Pat Laprade wrote on the topic, "since its inception, the PWHL has too often acted as though the history of women’s hockey began with the league itself."

And while this debate could center around the validity and worthiness of the Walter family, who also trademarked the name, Samantha Walter Cup, in honor of their daughter for the league, a name which has since been abandoned, or of Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss, the inappropriateness of the name goes further.

The Lombardi Trophy was named for legendary coach Vince Lombardi following his death. The Larry O'Brien Trophy only took O'Brien's name after he left his role as NBA commission in 1984 before passing away six years later. Both trophies were renamed for builders, not bought by investors.

The Stanley Cup was first awarded in 1893, donated by Lord Stanley. It was commissioned as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, but bore Stanley's name and was awarded to the top amateur team in Canada. It was then used for almost two decades as a challenge cup. It was then part of interleague competition between the NHA, PCHA, and Maritime leagues. It wasn't until 1926 when the NHL took over, and since then, no non-NHL team has been permitted to play for the Cup. The trophy came through many uses, and with decades of history attached.

To follow the NHL model, the PWHL would have more appropriately utilized the Clarkson Cup or Isobel Cup. To follow the NFL or NBA, the league would need to wait to choose a worthy leader, someone like Jayna Hefford, following her retirement, as the namesake. Or to follow the WNBA, NWSL, or MLB, a generic name could have been adopted.

But the PWHL chose a different, far riskier path. They didn't choose a generic name, or a name tied to the growth and development of the league or sport, they chose a billionaire in the midst of his career managing sports entities across several leagues and sports, an investor on Wall Street, and a manager of major insurance companies and their investments. Mark Walter's legacy is still being forged, and if the current investigation, or a future investigation into Walter's dealings comes out unfavourably, the legacy of the league and trophy could be tarnished by the name.

While money drives decisions in professional sport, the sporting world has also worked to celebrate legacy, impact, and excellence and sells itself a space where role models are built, character developed, and earned achievement celebrated.

There's a good reason billionaire investors don't lead the way in historic trophy names, and it's because their legacies are often riddled with issues, and their roles, much like Walter's, are driven by capitalism, not altruism. The ongoing investigations into Walter's finances, whether any wrongdoing comes from them or not, is enough to see that a legacy built on financial investment, rather than on excellence in women's hockey, was a gamble to place central to the league, inviting unwanted criticism that sticks to all.

Walter's investment in the PWHL was paramount, and long overdue in the hockey world for someone, or some group to step forward and build a long-lasting league for the best women's hockey players in the world.

But the placement of Walter, King, and Kloss as the key historic figures of women's hockey, a sport none played, nor had involvement with until a business opportunity arose, diminishes the prestige and historic nature of the trophy and awards. In 50 years, the Walter Cup may prove to be an appropriate name. But there is risk in placing a billionaire businessman's name on the trophy, centering the legacy of women's hockey on the money and the man, not the movement and the women themselves.

It should have never been the Walter Cup. It was a mistake, but not one that can't be undone.

Maybe someday, when Walter's single-entity ownership ends, a future board of governors will rename not only the Walter Cup, but the Billie Jean MVP and Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP awards to recognize the true builders and trailblazers, the forgotten women, and those who have built, and continue to build their legacy in women's hockey. That trophy, and those awards would be worthy, and truly befitting of 135 years of women's hockey history, and to also recognize the historic impact the PWHL has had, and will hopefully continue to have for the next 135 years.