Longtime women’s hockey reporters criticize snub by PWHL

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The organization representing hockey reporters in North America blasted the Professional Women’s Hockey League on Tuesday, accusing it of snubbing small publications that have long supported the women’s game, as the rookie league seeks to grow beyond its core fan base.

In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter), the Professional Hockey Writers Association complained that the PWHL’s decision to exclude certain members of the media from the selection process of its annual awards raises questions about its desire for equity and independent coverage.

“The league’s handpicked committee ignored and disregarded many dedicated individual media members and entire outlets who have devoted significant resources to covering the PWHL’s inaugural season from start to finish,” said the statement, which was signed by Erica Ayala, chair of the PHWA’s women’s chapter and Frank Seravalli, president of the PHWA.

The statement also hinted at growing pains for a startup that played its first game on New Year’s Day, only four months after announcing its formation. Some small outlets that had provided significant coverage of its predecessor, the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), felt overlooked as the PWHL courted larger audiences and new fans.

In its statement, the PHWA said its women’s chapter had been trying “to establish a working relationship between the PWHL and the media corps who cover the league.” It claimed that those talks “moved at a glacial pace and left us with more questions than answers, including whether the PWHL values independent coverage.”

The statement was deleted a couple of hours later. On Wednesday evening, it was reposted in a slightly modified form.

The statement came one day after the PWHL revealed the names of the 18 members of its awards selection committee, who will determine the winners of six of the league’s regular-season awards. In addition to an executive from each of the six teams, two former players, and a representative of the PWHL’s player association, the committee includes nine reporters: one from each of the six local team markets, and three with national outlets.

All members of the PHWA vote on many of the NHL’s most prestigious awards, including the Hart, Norris, Calder, Selke, Lady Byng, and Conn Smythe trophies.

After the committee’s makeup was announced, numerous other reporters took to X to complain that they had not been chosen.

The PHWA statement also caused some dissension in the ranks of its members, including among those who were chosen by the league to vote on the awards. Hailey Salvian, who covers hockey for The Athletic and is a member of the PHWA’s women’s chapter, said on X that she and the other eight reporters on the selection committee “are not league affiliated media. And to suggest we are not independent is incorrect and disingenuous.”

The Athletic is owned by The New York Times.

On Wednesday afternoon, the PHWA walked back some of its original statement in an e-mail that Ayala sent to The Globe and Mail. The association wrote: “Accuracy is key and we hold ourselves to account just as we do players and hockey personnel. Our statement and tweet yesterday painted with too broad a brush, insinuating that any voter invited to participate in the PWHL’s awards does not provide independent coverage, which is not the case. We stand by our message that the PWHL has a long way to go in creating an equitable media landscape.”

Seravalli did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Ayala said she would not be making any additional statement until after the conclusion of a meeting on Wednesday between the PHWA and the league, which had been scheduled before the spat went public.

A PWHL spokesperson declined to comment.

The episode has highlighted a lingering resentment among reporters who had regularly covered women’s professional hockey before the PWHL was born last summer out of the ashes of the PHF.

In the spring of 2023, the PHF announced a partnership with the writers’ association, which spawned the creation of the PHWA’s women’s chapter. Members of that chapter were given the privilege of voting on the league’s most valuable player. A news release at the time declared the partnership was “expected to expand next season to include other awards,” and that the PHWA would “have a seat at the table in helping shape the PHF’s media access policy in the near future.”

Those plans evaporated when the PHF was absorbed by the PWHL.

After the PWHL announced the awards-selection committee on Monday, a number of reporters and editors expressed their displeasure at the turn of events, noting that, for many, covering women’s hockey is a labour of love. Mike Murphy, managing editor of The Ice Garden, which has offered steadfast coverage of women’s hockey since the fall of 2016 even while enduring the vicissitudes of the sports media economy, wrote on X that he was “tremendously disappointed that no one from The Victory Press” – another independent outlet – “or The Ice Garden was invited to participate in media voting. At TIG, we did everything we could to provide consistent coverage of all six teams … Writers travelled to games on their own dime.”