Naming the PWHL's top honors, the Walter Cup, Billie Jean King MVP Award, and Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award recognizes financial investors of the moment, not 130 years of the movement powered by women who dedicated their lives to getting the sport where it is today.

Billie Jean King, Mark Walter, and Illana Kloss. These are not hockey names. At least they weren't until 2022.

Women's hockey on the other hand, has been around in an organized manner for more than 130 years. The first photograph of a woman playing hockey came in 1891, when Isobel Stanley was captured playing outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

When the century turned, stars like "phenom" Edith Anderson, "Queen of the Ice," Eva Ault, and "star of stars" Albertine Lapensée dazzled in the Eastern Ladies Hockey League. Following World War I, that torch was passed to women like Hilda Ranscombe and Bobbie Rosenfeld. Across North America, women's hockey was documented from coast to coast, by the late 1890s. When it disappeared during World War I and World War II, women built again, and built it bigger and better each time. 

Perhaps this is the reason why the naming of the PWHL's championship trophy, the Walter Cup, and league's new honor for their top player, the Billie Jean King MVP Award, and for the best player in the postseason, the Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award, feels wrong and disingenuous. 

In the past, trophies were often named for those who donated the hardware. That's the case with the NHL's Stanley Cup, or their own MVP honor, the Hart Trophy. It was also the case at points women's hockey history, such as the Lady Bessborough Trophy donated in 1933 by Roberte Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, whose husband was the Governor General of Canada. That trend continued into the future when Adrienne Clarkson, the first woman of colour to serve as Governor General in Canada, and second woman ever, commissioned a trophy for the CWHL in 2006. But the pattern isn't exclusive as proven by trophies like the Abby Hoffman Cup and Isobel Cup, which chose to honor historic figures in the game, and their contributions to the sport. The PHF's Isobel Cup could have easily been the Rylan Cup or Boynton Cup, but it wasn't. Even the CWHL's trophy named for Clarkson could have been the Andress Cup or Hefford Cup honoring the league's commissioners, or other founding members like Jennifer Botteril, Lisa-Marie Breton, or Sami Jo Small, or the many financial backers who kept the league alive. 

In terms of starting the new league, Walter, King, and Kloss were certainly instrumental. Without the financial investment, the industry connections, and the ability to scale a corporation as quickly as they did, the inaugural success of the PWHL may have underwhelmed. Instead, the league has over delivered. But that success was also built on the backs of thousands of women who gave decades of their lives to this sport without recognition. Without them, there would have been no game, no national team players, no pro leagues to acquire, and no platform for this league to stand upon. 

It does not mean fans and players won't be forever grateful to King, Kloss, and Walter, but it also doesn't mean league ownership could not have used the opportunity their privilege afforded to honor the true trailblazers of this sport. To King's credit, she has shown vocal support for the women's game since 2017 when the USA national team was fighting for equal pay, and since 2019 with the PWHPA. Imagine, however, if tennis' current Billie Jean King Cup was named the Tory Burch Trophy or the Gainbridge Cup recognizing large financial supporters of the International Tennis Federation, or the Cullman Cup after tobacco CEO Joe Cullman who sponsored the first ever WTA tournament.

It wouldn't be right. Billie Jean King deserved that honor for her contribution to the sport, and she received it.

Hockey has struggled with inclusion, including those defined by socioeconomic barriers. It's another reason naming trophies for millionaires and billionaires is a move in the wrong direction, signalling who has the power in this game and who does not. In this case, the PWHL chose to follow a deviation the Golden Rule first written in the 1965 comic strip Wizard of Id that said, "whoever has the gold makes the rules."

To be clear, it is Mark Walter, and Billie Jean King, and Ilana Kloss' prerogative to name awards for themselves. Just like it was their prerogative to name All-Star rosters for themselves, tennis stars, rather than stars of hockey. They are providing the league with funding and support. It is quite literally their league. They own it. But it is not their sport. No one owns the game of hockey. When you have an opportunity to start something anew, to do things the right way, this is a missed opportunity to celebrate the existence, and honor the legacy of a century of women who paid their own money to play for national teams, lost jobs to travel to tournaments, were spit on and name called for stepping on the ice, banned from arenas, forced to change in closets and conceal their gender, fought court cases to play the game, fabricated their own equipment, and built teams and leagues from nothing. 

The ability to give money is wonderful. And Mark Walter, Billie Jean King, and Ilana Kloss have done that, with abundance. Through history, Hockey Canada, USA Hockey, and the IIHF refused to fund women's hockey. When the first international women's hockey competition was launched, powered forward by Fran Rider, who has been integral in the growth of women's hockey globally since the 1960s, there was no money. Toronto Maple Leafs star Borje Salming helped foot the bill for Sweden to attend. Canadian and American national teams paid their own way, often relying on fundraising. But as legendary goaltender Cathy Phillips, the unchallenged best goaltender on the planet from the 1970s to 1990s, told me, people didn't want to help women, even Canada's national team.

“I started looking for sponsorship, I thought it would be nice if we had team jackets so that at least we looked like a team off the ice, not just on the ice. So I started looking for sponsors, I remember walking into one place and meeting the gentlemen and saying ‘I’m looking for a sponsor to help sponsor my team to play in a world championship’. He pulled out his check book and he said, ‘how old are the kids?’ And I said ‘oh no, it’s us, it’s women’, and he slowly slipped his check book back into the drawer.”

Or Shirley Cameron, who to play in her first Canadian national championship with the Edmonton Chimos, almost lost her job when an article came out in the Toronto Sun saying "Alberta Player Risks Job."

“I almost got fired trying to go to my very first national championship in Ontario,” Cameron told me. “They wouldn’t give me holidays. I got a medical certificate that said I had a knee problem. I did whatever I could to play, but that’s how hard it was for me to get to play...it’s only because I had a union I didn’t get fired.”

In this way, the contribution of funding for a truly professional league, for venues, equipment, staffing, and salaries is monumental, and cannot be overlooked. But when it comes to those doing the naming, it's not entirely altruistic, it's also for their business as owners. 

There are more ways to contribute than through the giving of millionaires and billionaires. Current players in the league like Kendall Coyne Schofield and Madison Packer gave their lives to the development of women's hockey at the professional level, albeit on different but parallel paths, with little financial gain. Jayna Hefford, who headed the PWHPA and CWHL, who played in the inaugural Olympics, and was a scoring star, leading her team on many occasions would be a worthy namesake for the MVP honor, and likely will get a trophy in her name in the future. The same could be said for Hilda Ranscombe, Caroline Ouellette, Geraldine Heaney, Angela James, Cammi Granato, Angela Ruggiero, Marian Coveny, Cindy Curley, Cathy Phillips, Dawn McGuire, and Kim St. Pierre. Without Fran Rider, we might still be waiting for a World Championship and the inclusion of women at the Olympic Games in hockey. Without the legal battles of Abigail Hoffman, Francois Turbide, and Justine Blainey, women's right to play the game of hockey without restriction would remain decades behind. Without forgotten heroes like Bev Beaver, and the countless other women who had to hide their identity, change their names, and pretend to be boys to play, change would not have come. Without the international support of women like Line Baun Danielson or Kristina Berglund, we wouldn't be awaiting an incoming wave of international talent to the league. Someday maybe we will see one of these awards renamed for a player like Marie-Philip Poulin, who has arguably done more to showcase the talent of women in hockey over the past decade than anyone alive. But those who have the gold, make the rules, and in this case, those who have the gold, write history.

I'm beyond thankful the investment from the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises came along. It was long overdue and to see a league like this, finally, featuring all of the best players in one spot with crowds and media coverage, it's thrilling. But it would go a long way for the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises to show thanks to the countless women who committed their lives to this effort, creating a space and the impetus where their financial investment could find success.

As Billie Jean King herself said, opening the inaugural PWHL Draft by borrowing a line from the musical 'Hamilton', "It's not about a single moment, it's about a movement."

The problem is, the Walter Cup, Billie Jean King MVP Award, and Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award recognize the moment, not the movement.