The inaugural season of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) kicked off on New Year's Day as PWHL New York rolled into the Mattamy Athletic Centre (Formerly Maple Leaf Gardens) and blanked PWHL Toronto 4-0, spoiling the home opener for Toronto.
HSM was thrilled to be in attendance at the inaugural game. The atmosphere was electric and the fans were cheering loud and proud.
This league is a sign that professional women's hockey is here, and here to stay. The PWHL is a star-studded league featuring the likes of Marie-Philip Poulin, Hilary Knight, and Brianne Jenner, to name a few.
The league is comprised of six teams, three Canadian (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal) and three American (Minnesota, Boston, New York). Bauer and CCM both stepped up as official gear suppliers for the league, putting some sweet pro stock gear in the hands of these incredible athletes.
Our first spotting is this sweet blacked out Hyp2rlite graphic in the hands of Toronto's Maggie Connors. Consider us highlighting a blacked out stick the free square on your HSM bingo card. Nevertheless, props to Connors on a great choice here.
Seen here is what's been a popular sight so far - custom National team graphics. With many PWHL players also being mainstay's with their National team programs, such as Canada's Brianne Jenner, pictured above, it could make sense that they use the same gear year round.
It will be interesting to track this trend as some players already have custom graphics to match their team colours. While these new sticks can be the same exact builds with different graphics, hockey players can be a bit picky with using new gear, especially sticks.
It's about time we saw another professional hockey player using the CCM FT Ghost other than Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews. Maybe the criteria is you need be a first overall pick? That would make sense as to why PWHL Minnesota's Taylor Heise is also wielding CCM's newest weapon, as Heise went 1st overall in the PWHL's inaugural draft back in September.
The future of women's professional hockey is in great hands with these players. There's been some incredible action so far and we're only one week in to the season. Will we see any more custom colour gear as the season rolls on? Will there be sightings of unreleased models like we see in NHL? We'll be sure to tune in, regardless, cause...
