As Pat Laprade writes, the people and organizations impacted most by potential PWHL expansion, the teams, players, agents, coaches, and GMs, remain completely in the dark regarding potential expansion, impeding team planning at the most crucial time.
With the PWHL making its second stop to Denver this weekend, and being about one month away from celebrating the anniversary of the league’s announcements of adding Vancouver and Seattle, expansion talks are a hot topic right now.
A hot topic that no one knows anything about.
As of this writing, no GMs, players or agents I spoke to had any news, aside from what my colleague Ian Kennedy reported yesterday: The hope is four new teams, but it might only be two.
Even though PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer said the timeline for this year’s expansion would be similar to last year’s, I was hoping that, at the very least, people who are directly impacted by this would be in the loop this time around.
But no. Everyone is being kept in the dark.
Impacting GMs, Players, and Agents
What I have a hard time understanding is how the league can expect their GMs to make a suitable job when they don’t know what’s going to happen.
Trade deadline is in two weeks, so is roster freeze. How can one expect GMs to make the right moves as far as trades or signing players from Europe when they don’t know how many players they will lose in three months?
In other words, GMs are PWHL’s employees who are not being set up for success by their own superiors. Same goes with future GMs, who won’t have much time to build their teams.
This also impacts players, mainly fourth liners, 13th forwards, 7th defenders, third goalies and reserve players. How can the league expect those players not to be concerned about what is going to happen to them in a few months?
They can’t plan for the future, not knowing if two teams, four teams or no team at all will be added next year.
“Am I going to have to play in Europe? Am I going to be drafted by a new team? Am I going to be invited to a camp? Am I going to stay with my team? Am I going to play at all next season?”
Those are valid questions that even some star players would want answers to. I understand it wouldn’t answer every single one of them, but it certainly could give players some indications.
It’s a total lack of respect to your bread and butter, the reason why venues are selling out: the players.
Players’ agents could also be better at their job.
Right now, people representing players can’t effectively do that. They can’t start making plans, getting to know the new GMs and coaches, getting info on the different markets.
How can agents advise their players properly when no one knows what the heck is going on?
Same goes for future players. For every Caroline Harvey or Abbey Murphy, who don’t have to worry about being picked, how many women, ranked between 50 and 75, don’t know what to expect yet, simply because we still don’t know how many teams will be drafting in June?
Why Not Take From the WNBA?
The WNBA started in June of 1997.
Their first season ended in August and in the fall of that year, the league announced two new teams for the 1998 season. A timeline close to what the PWHL had for its first expansion.
But just before year two, in April 1998, the league announced two new expansion teams for the 1999 season, more than a year before those teams were to start. Then, on June 7, 1999, the league announced four new teams, a full year before they had to begin their operations.
Just recently, the Toronto franchise, the 14th in the history of the league, was confirmed two years before. Not one year. Not seven months. Two full years.
The WNBA and the PWHL had a similar first expansion. But then, the WNBA adapted and corrected the situation.
Why is the PWHL seem unable to do that?