Dani Rylan had dreams of being a pro hockey player ever since she fell in love with the game as a child. While she had a successful collegiate career — one that saw her lift the Beanpot Trophy as a member of the Northeastern University women’s team — an option to play hockey and be compensated didn’t exist in the United States. On Oct. 11, she will help change that. The four-team National Women’s Hockey League will play its first game that day, with Rylan, 28, serving as commissioner and co-founder.
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I’ve heard from a number of people that this is a no-brainer, or that they didn’t know something like this didn’t already exist. To have this league go from just an idea about a year and a half ago to now close to opening night, it’s been such an exciting journey. A large part of what makes it so special is the fans and the hockey community, who have been so supportive?”
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Rylan with two young fans at the league’s first charity event
Photo by: NWHL |
On building for longevity: We’ve structured the league in a way that we believe will build it for the long haul. We’ve set salary caps and operating budgets for each team and have arranged for players to receive free equipment as well as negotiate their own contracts. We will support a union as well.
On sponsor interest: We’ve had some good discussions so far with potential sponsors, but many are interested in being there for year two, after they see year one. I understand that they have to wait and see what our exact demographics are and how many butts are in the seats. We just need to keep working to make sure that number today is more than we had yesterday.
On marketing plans: Each team will only have nine home games, so we’re marketing each individual game as sort of its own event. We’ve been working with our merchandise partner PopTops on a number of concepts for special events, such as Strides for the Cure night in support of breast cancer awareness. Community outreach is a big part of what we’re going to do as a league.
On the goals of the league: The immediate goal is to provide a place for players to continue to improve after college. Too many women players end their careers at that point and never reach their athletic peak, which is often said to occur for women around the age of 27. My hope is that we can provide that opportunity to more players, and maybe find new national team players that we haven’t heard of, allowing them to reach that goal.
