Featured Image:
Noora Räty
(Photo/University of Minnesota Athletics)

By Mollyhall Seeley
The Pink Puck

Vinny Prospal retired late last month. He had played 16 seasons in the NHL, jumping Jagr-like from team to team, first with the Philadelphia Flyers and eventually the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was born in 1975–a good year for hockey, and for the Flyers in particular, who made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. They were turned away by the Montreal Canadiens, but Reggie Leach won playoff MVP. The Habs’ Guy Lafleur was the season’s top scorer but the Flyers’ Bobby Clarke won season MVP.  Mel Bridgman made his NHL debut after being selected first overall, and fourteen seasons later he retired. In 1992, he was was named the first General Manager of the Ottawa Senators, for whom Prospal played from 1998-2001.

By the time he announced his retirement, Vinny Prospal had skated on a lot of different ice and called a lot of different rinks “home.” He had been to Turin and taken home a bronze medal. He had played 1,108 games in the league, all told. He is 38.

Noora Räty is 24. She played 139 games for the Minnesota Gophers and won 122 of them, including a perfect season in 2012-13, where she recorded 17 shutouts and a .95 save percentage. In a 38-game season, Räty let in a mere 36 goals, giving her a 0.96% GAA. She made the Finnish National team at age 15 and helped them win bronze at 21, making 16 saves for a win over Sweden. She won the IIHF World Women’s Championships Best Goalie in 2007 and 2008 and MVP in 2008 (Hayley Wickenheiser, current captain of Team Canada and flag-bearer at Sochi’s Opening Ceremonies, won the year before).

She has 41 career shutouts in the NCAA–a Division I record. Earlier this year, The Hockey News ranked her as one of their People of Power (at #63). They wrote, “Räty ha[s] the ability to be the tournament [in Sochi]’s most influential player. She [is] the person capable of derailing a juggernaut almost singlehandedly.”

It’s not speculation. Räty shut out Team USA–who has never left the World Championships without a gold or silver medal–in the 2008 World Championships with 30 saves. Räty’s shutout came the same year that the American team beat the Canadians for just the second time in 11 matches; in other words, an already-juggernaut team at their absolute strongest.

“As long as I get a shutout, we can’t lose,” Räty told the Minnesota Daily last March.

Noora Räty is among the best goalies in the world, male and female. She is 24.

She is retiring.

—

This is Noora Räty:

[youtube id=”qcBGbvJtcwY” width=”620″ height=”360″]

What’s remarkable about this save isn’t that Räty didn’t fall for the deke; it’s that she did. You can see her glove hand going up, reaching for a puck that isn’t coming. It’s like she’s isolated her different muscles, like each of them can react independently to one another. Räty’s glove hand is falling for the deke while her leg knows better. She makes two saves at the same time.

A goalie like that would go first round in the NHL draft, if she were lucky enough to have been born with a Y chromosome. A goalie ready for the international stage at 15, who can be fooled and unfooled at the same time, a goalie who can carry her team in her glove, would barely languish at all in the AHL. A goalie like that would be hailed as the next Ken Dryden, the next Patrick Roy, the next Martin Brodeur.

Brodeur, by the way, is 41. He has played 21 seasons with the New Jersey Devils. Roy retired after 18 years in the NHL, first with the Canadiens and then the Avalanche (for whom he is now coach and Vice President of Hockey Operations). Dryden played just seven seasons with the Habs, retiring at 31. The decision to retire was his own; he was ready for different things. His life as a hockey player had run its course.

Compare that to Räty, whose announcement on Twitter today told a different story:

…As much as I would love to just play the game I love and that has given me so much, I have to choose a work career (unless I can make a living from playing). Why? Because who would then pay my rent, car loan and insurance, and other bills? I’m 24-years-old, out of college, single, and the money doesn’t grow in [sic] trees so yes you are right, the answer is no one. I’m done living from hand to mouth and now it’s time to start building wealth and think[ing] about my future. And I’m not the only player having this problem… the majority of female players have the same problem.

Noora Räty is not retiring because she is finished with hockey; she is retiring because there is nowhere for her to go. I wrote earlier this week in “Women’s Olympic Hockey: Why Gold Matters” about how limited a woman’s hockey options are, the farther along she gets in her career. Despite being one of the fastest growing women’s sports in the world, when it comes to making a living, even the most extraordinary players are brought up short.

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), full of talent and empty of funds, cannot pay its players. Russia has an 11-team professional woman’s league, but the league suffers from the same curse that plagues the CWHL–the same plague that follows women’s hockey (and women’s sports) everywhere: underfunding, underexposure, and a near-total lack of engagement outside of Olympic years.

Throw a stone in most places and you’ll hit five separate hockey programs for little boys; throw a boulder and you’ll still miss the single female hockey program as it rounds a corner. A 2009 study of coverage by gender in ESPN The Magazine published in the International Journal of Sport Management found that:

• for 1,425 feature articles which pertained to men’s sports, only 50 pertained to women (and only 48 pertained to both)–which means that men received 96.6% percent of the coverage, and women a mere 3.3%
• of the articles devoted to women, 90.0% of them were relegated to the back half of the magazine; only 58.8% of articles about men received the same treatment
• 94.7% of “special photographs” (i.e. covers and “Zoom” section photographs) were exclusively dedicated to male sports, and only 5.3%  to women’s sports.

“But wait!” you say. It’s not ESPN The Magazine‘s fault that not as many people watch women’s hockey. It’s not the media’s fault that audiences will watch 4,000 replays of TJ Oshie vs. Russia in the shootout but aren’t sure how to spell “Wickenheiser.” Can we really blame ESPN The Magazine for catering to its readership?

The problem is that readership is as much dependent on content as it is determined by content. Maybe most women don’t spend a lot of time reading ESPN The Magazine,  but why should they? People like them aren’t in it. A woman sports fan has to read 1,375 articles to find a story about someone whose gender identity matches hers. Writing for dudes about dudes creates a feedback loop that doesn’t allow for growth in either direction. As the same study points out, “the media are seen as influencing people’s leisure choices because of their ability to cultivate images and perceptions of what’s popular and attractive … for those sports that are under-represented, awareness and efforts to build fan bases are often much more difficult.”

Getting fans there is half the battle. Once they’re in the building, they’ll bring their wallets, they’ll buy beer and t-shirts and season tickets. They’ll grow loyalties and cultivate favorites; they’ll spend hours on the pond with their daughters talking about the game they saw when they were younger– “Oh man, honey, you should have seen it–Wick with the puck and Räty in goal, I swear the whole stadium stopped breathing…”

In other words: if you build it, they will come.

—

There’s a caveat in this story, which is that Noora Räty is not actually retiring from hockey.

She is retiring from women’s hockey.

I will hang up my skates for good if I can’t play professional hockey IN A COMPETITIVE LEAGUE next season. I said competitive league because I could always go play in the Russian women’s league … [however, after] playing a few games there myself in January, I don’t think this league will challenge me enough[…] But I play hockey because I love to get challenged as it drives me to get better as an athlete and goalie.  Thus, I would love to take on the challenge and try playing with men since I can’t play college hockey anymore and there’s no professional league [that pays its players] in North America. But I guess time will show if some men’s pro team is willing to give me a chance.

Räty wouldn’t be the first female player to play on a team with the boys; Manon Rhéaume was the first women to play in an NHL game (for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992) and Hayley Wickenheiser played on both Finnish and Swedish men’s teams (she also turned down an offer from Phil Esposito to play for the Cincinnati Cyclones in the ECHL). Hilary Knight, in an interview after the USA/Canada game on Wednesday, talked about going to Sweden to play in the men’s league over there. When asked whether she wanted to play with the boys, Knight grinned big and said, “Oh, yeah.”

The problem with this joke by the LA Kings’ twitter is not that it is at the USA Women’s Olympic Hockey Team’s expense; it isn’t. It’s at the LA Kings’ expense. The problem with this joke isn’t that women couldn’t hack it in the NHL; in my opinion, many of them could, if they wanted to. The problem with this joke isn’t even that it isn’t funny, because at least 1,598 people found it so.

The problem with this joke is that not a single player on the USA Women’s Olympic Hockey Team has a chance to make even the NHL’s minimum salary of $525,000 playing their sport and doing it better than many of their male counterparts.

The problem with this joke is that Noora Räty has to retire so that she can pay her car loans.

Gender integration isn’t something that has ever made it too high up on the NHL’s To Do List. They are more worried about whether players should be allowed to tuck their shirts in, and trying to figure out what arbitrary line in the sand would mark the difference between Just Part of the Game Violence and We Are About To Get Super Duper Sued Violence. Technically, there is nothing stopping women from playing in the NHL, except that they are rarely given the chance.

Women’s hockey has peculiar pressure points. Checking isn’t allowed, technically, but it still happens; the match-up between the USA and Canada on the 12th proved that. Still, there are no Broad Street Bullies, no Big Bad Bruins. There is no such thing as an enforcer, or at least, not in the way that the NHL understands the term. You can’t make a living off your fists in women’s hockey because you can’t use your fists. Even players whose main job is to play the enforcer-type role has to be able to contribute at the technical level. (Also, of course, you can’t make a living in women’s hockey at all.)

The game has evolved to put high focus on stick-work and skill. Essentially every player on the team has to be able to perform the kind of puck-handling madness that players like Patrick Kane and Sidney Crosby do in the NHL. That’s not because women can’t fight, or learn the right way to absorb a hit; it’s because that element was taken out of their league’s game, and they had to compensate.

(Well. For the most part.

[youtube id=”gGiKEv4ETjg” width=”620″ height=”360″]

They’re only human, after all.)

Of course, gender integration of the NHL is not the answer to the problems of the CWHL–or women’s hockey in general. As Brenda Andress, Executive Director for the CWHL, told the Toronto Star, “We’re not the NHL and we’re never going to be, nor should we be, we have a very different game.” Räty herself doesn’t even call for it; instead, she writes that she believes the best hope for the future of women’s hockey is to build up the North American women’s leagues to a competitive level. Women’s hockey–women’s sports–already have the players. They have the heart and the hands and the heads.

Someone just has to build the stadiums up around them.

About the Author:

To learn more about Mollyhall Seeley and read more of her work, visit her bio page at ThePinkPuck.com/author/mollyhall/

The post Commentary: What Noora Räty’s Retirement Says About Women’s Hockey appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Amanda Kessel produced big numbers on a record-setting night for the Gophers (Photo: WCHA.com)

Led by Amanda Kessel’s five-point effort (2 goals, 3 assists), the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team rolled to a 9-1 win over Minnesota State (4-8-2, 2-6-2-1 WCHA) at Ridder Arena and into the NCAA record books. The undefeated Gophers (14-0-0, 10-0-0 WCHA) won their 22nd straight game dating back to Feb. 18 to set a new NCAA record for consecutive victories, eclipsing the previous record of 21 set by Harvard University between Jan. 4 and March 15, 2008.

Senior defenseman Megan Bozek also scored twice while junior forward Kelly Terry chipped in four assists to an offensive machine which did not get started until the game’s second half.

Charging and interference penalties committed by Minnesota’s Sara Davis and Hanna Brandt, respectively, late in the first period gave the Mavericks a 5-on-3 advantage. Just 22 seconds later, MSU capitalized when Lauren Smith took advantage of prone Gopher goaltender, Noora Räty, to tie the game 1-1 and, in the process, score the first opening-period goal allowed by Minnesota this season.

That is how it remained until Bozek’s goal at 10:54 of the second period put the Gophers back up by a goal and opened the floodgates. Minnesota would go on to score seven more goals over the game’s next 22:24 to complete the record-setting rout.

“We set the record with this year’s team, but last year’s team was a big part of it as well,” Minnesota coach Brad Frost said, acknowledging the contribution of the 2011-12 Gophers who won their final eight games en route to an NCAA title. “Obviously winning the national championship last year was special—this doesn’t rank up quite as high as that —but this is a pretty neat thing for our program.

“It’s pretty remarkable to win 22 games in a row.”

Bozek added, “Not many people can say that they’ve [set] an NCAA record; it’s been a good start to the year, I’d say.”

In case you were wondering, Harvard finished 32-2-0 in 2008 but did not capture the NCAA championship as the Crimson dropped a 4-1 decision to Wisconsin in the Frozen Four semifinals. Two nights later, Minnesota-Duluth defeated the Badgers 4-0 for its fourth NCAA title.

. . . . . 

Elsewhere in the WCHA …

No. 10 North Dakota (6-5-0, 5-4-0-0 WCHA) received goals from Allison Parizek, Michelle Karvinen, and Monique Lamoureux aided by a pair of Jocelyne Lamoureux assists to defeat Bemidji State 3-1 in Saturday night’s season opener between the regional rivals at the Sanford Center. The Beavers (2-7-2, 1-5-1-0 WCHA) benefited from senior forward Emily Erickson‘s first goal of the year but it wasn’t enough to prevent BSU’s fifth straight loss to North Dakota dating back to a 3-2 victory on Nov. 26, 2011. The two teams will meet again on Sunday afternoon at 2 pm at the Sanford Center.

. . . . . 

Minnesota-Duluth’s Tea Villila battles with St. Cloud State’s Haylea Schmid during UMD’s 4-1 win. (Photo: Tom Nelson, St. Cloud State Athletics)

For the second time in as many days, the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs skated to a 4-1 win over the St. Cloud State Huskies at the National Hockey Center. Jenna McParland‘s second goal of the series at 7:51 of the first period proved to be the difference and extended UMD’s unbeaten streak over SCSU to 11 games. The Bulldogs (5-6-1, 4-5-1 WCHA) outshot the Huskies (4-9-1, 2-8-0 WCHA) by a 36-29 margin and went 2-of-6 on the power play while holding St. Cloud State scoreless in two attempts.

. . . . .

Minnesota native Taylor Kuehl‘s (Minnetrista) two goals led the Ohio State Buckeyes (10-4-0, 8-4-0 WCHA) to a 3-1 win over the Wisconsin Badgers (8-4-2-, 4-4-2-2 WCHA) to split the series in Columbus, Ohio.

The post Gophers establish new NCAA victory mark in win over Minnesota State appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Megan Bozek scored three goals in a Minnesota sweep of UMD in Duluth. (Photo: WCHA.com)

No. 1 Minnesota (12-0-0, 8-0-0 WCHA) at Minnesota-Duluth (3-6-1, 2-5-1 WCHA)

Friday: UM 4  UMD 1
Saturday: UM 4  UMD o

Minnesota extended its winning streak to 18 games in sweeping Minnesota Duluth on the road for the first time since Oct. 26-27, 2007. Freshman Maryanne Menefee scored twice while fellow rookie, Hannah Brandt, and  junior Amanda Kessel each added a pair of assists toward Friday’s win. UMD junior forward, Jamie Kenyon, scored the lone goal of the series for the Bulldogs early in the third period but Gopher goalie Noora Räty stopped all 23 other  UMD shots in the opener. Minnesota-Duluth goaltender, Kayla Black made 23 of her series total of 52 saves on Friday.

In Saturday’s finale, Senior defenseman, Megan Bozek, scored twice–her second and third goals of the series–and Räty made 17 saves in shutting out the Bulldogs. Brandt added two more assists to maintain her team and national points lead at 33 (12-21–33) while Kessel scored her team-leading 15th goal of the season, which also leads the nation. In addition, Bozek’s 18 points (6-12–18) tops all Division I defensemen.

Minnesota State (4-6-2, 2-4-2 WCHA) at Wisconsin (7-3-2, 3-3-2 WCHA)

Friday: UW 2  MSU 0
Saturday: UW 5 MSU 0

Wisconsin goaltender Alex Rigsby, last week’s WCHA Defensive Player of the Week, extended her shutout streak to 189 minutes in blanking the Mavericks twice in Madison. With the exception goaltender Danielle Butters‘ 72 saves in the series, not much went right for MSU in two games at LaBahn Arena. Warroad’s Karley Sylvester contributed an assist in each game for the Badgers.

No. 10 Ohio State (9-3-0, 7-3-0 WCHA) at St. Cloud State (2-7-1, 2-6-0 WCHA)

Friday: OSU 3  SCSU 2
Saturday: OSU 4 SCSU 2

With a goal on Friday and a pair of assists on Saturday,  Ohio State sophomore forward Taylor Kuehl–and reigning WCHA Offensive Player of the Week–of Minnetrista, Minn. helped lead the Buckeyes to a sweep of the Huskies in St. Cloud. Edina’s Ellie Sitek recorded her first goal of the season early in the third period of the series opener but OSU answered just over six minutes later on a Tina Hollwell goal which would become the game winner. SCSU goaltender Julie Friend of Minnetonka took the loss on Friday despite her 32-save effort.

Audrey Hamner had a goal and an assist in Saturday’s loss at home to Ohio State (Photo: St. Cloud State University Athletics)

Andover’s Alex Nelson got the Huskies on the board first on Saturday and a late second-period goal by Audrey Hamner of Wyoming, Minn. gave St. Cloud State a 2-1 lead heading into the third, but Ohio State countered with a trio of third-period goals to put the game away. Kuehl assisted on Hollowell’s empty-net goal at the 19 minute mark to seal the sweep for the Buckeyes.

No. 4 Clarkson (8-2-0, 2-0-0 ECAC) at No. 9 North Dakota (5-5-0, 4-4-0 WCHA)

Friday: CU 3  UND 1
Saturday: UND 3  CU 2

North Dakota freshman goaltender Shelby Amsely-Benzie of Warroad made 23 saves to earn her second win of the season and help UND salvage a split in its non-conference series with visiting Clarkson University on Saturday. Mary Loken, a senior forward from Roseau, assisted on Jocelyne Lamoureux‘s 100th collegiate goal at 3:16 of the second period in the win.

The post WCHA women’s weekend recap appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

ilia Ohio State so. forward, Taylor Kuehl (Minnetrista, MInn.), has been named WCHA Offensive Player of the Week. (Photo: WCHA.com)

With four goals and an assist last weekend to help her Ohio State Buckeyes to a sweep of visiting Bemidji State last weekend, sophomore forward, Taylor Kuehl (Minnestrista, Minn.) was named WCHA Offensive Player of the Week. Kuehl, who registered nine shots and was a +4 plus/minus in the series, is heating up now with six goals in her last four games and 10 points (8-2–10) in 10 games this season.

Minnesota defenseman Milica McMillen scored once in each game of the Gophers’ sweep at North Dakota last weekend and added an assist while helping limit UND to 40 total shots in the series. All that adds up to WCHA Rookie of the Week for the freshman from St. Paul who sits tied for second in overall scoring among WCHA defenseman with 11 points (5-6–11) through 10 games.

Wisconsin junior goaltender, Alex Rigsby was recognized as WCHA Defensive Player of the week after leading the Badgers to a sweep at home of New Hampshire by stopping 50 of 51 Wildcats’ shots.

Heading over to the polls …

After last weekend’s sweep of North Dakota in Grand Forks, Minnesota’s extended its run as U.S. College Hockey Online’s consensus No. 1 team in the nation to a fifth straight week to open the season. North Dakota drops one spot to No. 9 while Ohio State, after a one-week hiatus from the top 10, climbs back in at No. 10. Wisconsin (12) and Minnesota-Duluth (11) each received votes this week but, following a pair of losses to No. 5 Mercyhurst, Minnesota State falls from the 10th spot without receiving a vote.

USCHO’s initial Division III women’s poll finds Gustavus Adolphus ranked No. 3 in the country (one first-place vote) behind Norwich and Plattsburgh, respectively.  Concordia (Moorhead) opens the season at No. 10 with St. Thomas (5), Bethel (2), and St. Scholastica (1) also receiving votes.

Notable …

With 21 saves in Saturday’s 5-1 win over UND, Gopher goaltender Noora Räty earned her 84th career victory to become the school’s all-time leader in that category. Sunday’s win raised her overall record to 85-17-8 and leaves the Espoo, Finland native just 15 wins shy of tying the NCAA record set last season by Mercyhurst’s Hillary Pattenden (100-20-6).

Nicole Anderson’s five-point weekend (3-2–5) for Providence earns the Jordan, Minn. forward Hockey East Player of the week honors. (Photos: Hockey East)

Congratulations go out to Providence senior forward, Nicole Anderson (Jordan, Minn.), as the recipient of this week’s Hockey East Player of the Week award. According to a Hockey East press release, Anderson tallied five points on the weekend (3g,2a), including a hat trick and an assist in the 4-2 win over St. Cloud State on Sunday. During Saturday’s game she tallied an assist on the tying goal with 19.2 seconds left in the game. She finished the weekend with 14 shots on goal and a +3 plus/minus rating.

The post Recognition, rankings, and records appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Tracy McCann had a big weekend for Minnesota State (Photo: WCHA.com)

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) named it’s women’s player’s of the week yesterday and players with Minnesota ties factored into all three awards.

With two goals and two assists, Minnesota State forward, Tracy McCann, had a hand in all four of her team’s goals as the Mavericks tied and beat Minnesota-Duluth last weekend. Her performance earned the junior from Lakewood, Ohio WCHA Offensive Player of the Week honors.

McCann registered a goal and two primary assists as MSU rallied from a three-goal deficit to tie UMD 3-3 on Friday and scored the lone goal in Minnesota State’s 1-0 victory on Saturday. In addition, McCann, who now has 11 points (6-5–11) in eight games, potted the shootout winner in the series opener giving the Mavericks five of a possible six points on the weekend.

Minnesota’s Noora Räty punctuated record-tying win with a shutout (Photo: WCHA.com)

Minnesota senior goaltender Noora Räty allowed just two goals on 37 shots to backstop the Gophers to a sweep of Ohio State and share the WCHA Defensive Player of the Week award with North Dakota goalie Jorid Dagfinrud. Räty, a senior from Espoo, Finland, made 15 save’s in Minnesota’s 7-2 win on Friday and shut out the Buckeyes on 20 shots in the Gophers’ 8-0 victory on Saturday.

Räty’s 30th career shutout came in her 83rd career win, tying her with Jody Horak for most wins in program history. Her performance boosts Räty’s overall record to 7-0-0 with a 0.48 goals against average and 0.978 save percentage.

Brandt’s 24 points are second only to teammate Amanda Kessel’s 25 in overall scoring among WCHA players. (Photo: University of Minnesota Athletics)

Hannah Brandt really only had an average weekend but, when applied to the Minnesota forward, average is a relative term. The freshman from Vadnais Heights had six points (2-4–6) in the Gophers’ sweep of Ohio State and was named WCHA Rookie of the Week for the second time already this season.

Brandt, who also racked up a team-best +7 plus/minus rating (+21 overall), now has 24 points (11-13–24) through the season’s first four weeks.

The post WCHA women’s weekly honors announced appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.