2017 and 2024 were both significant years in the movement to build a professional women's hockey landscape. Both years also involved a total solar eclipse passing over the USA.
The last total solar eclipse visible by much of the USA happened only a few years ago in 2017. Before that, the last widely seen total solar eclipses in the USA happened in the 1970s, with total solar eclipses in different parts of the nation in 1979, 1970, 1959, 1932, 1925, and perhaps the most wide spread in 1918.
It's a rare occurrence to see, and the 2024 solar eclipse will pass over much of the USA and Canada, including Utica, New York.
On the ice at the Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, Finland and Switzerland will be playing during the totality of the eclipse.
In 2017, the last time a total solar eclipse occurred in the USA, Team USA almost didn't play in the IIHF World Championships. That year, USA's national women's team was fighting for equality, specifically equal pay compared to USA's men's national team.
The team was set to sit out the World Championships which were being held in Plymouth, Michigan that year, unless USA Hockey changed their inequitable treatment of their men's and women's hockey programs.
"We are asking for a living wage and for U.S.A. Hockey to fully support its programs for women and girls and stop treating us like an afterthought,” team captain Meghan Duggan, said in a statement at the time. “We have represented our country with dignity and deserve to be treated with fairness and respect.”
The athletes won that moment, and returned to not only play in the 2017 World Championships, but to win gold. USA beat Canada 3-2 in overtime that year with Kendall Coyne Schofield and Brianna Decker tying for the tournament lead in scoring, with Decker being named tournament MVP.
USA Hockey attempted to field a team of replacement players, but whoever they asked said no, standing in solidarity with the national team.
The movement to stand firm, and boycott was a catalyzing event for the labor movement in women's hockey over the last four years. Players from USA's national team like Coyne Schofield and Hilary Knight became board members of the new PWHPA which chose to boycott the NWHL following the dissolution of the CWHL until their conditions for play were met.
That process took four years and the sacrifice of many women playing in the PHF, NWHL, and PWHPA to become a reality in the form of the PWHL.
From a 2017 labor movement, to the launch of the PWHL in 2024, women's hockey has experienced significant events in total solar eclipse years in the USA. It begs the question, what will happen in 2045, the next time a significant total solar eclipse passes over the United States.