The IX: Hockey Friday with Erica L. Ayala, February 21, 2020
The Patty Kaz nominees are ... - Interview with Lovisa Selander - must-click WoHo links!
Subscribers, thank you for your support! You’ve opted to join us for five different women’s sports newsletters in your inbox every week! The IX helps build the necessary infrastructure for women’s sports media. If you know someone who would love The IX as much as you do, forward this offer along!
Continue reading with a subscription to The IX
Get unlimited access to our exclusive coverage of a varitety of women’s sports, including our premium newsletter by subscribing today!
Already a member?
Login
It’s Almost IIHF Time
Hi everyone! Wanted to officially announce that we have a Civil Boost to help me cover expenses for the 2020 IIHF World Championships in Halifax.
This will be my first Worlds and I am so excited! I’ll be coming straight from the NCAA Frozen Four, to the NCAA Final Four, to Worlds. That is why we’re asking for some help! We are so thankful for our subscribers, but sometimes we need a little BOOST to cover women’s sports in the manner deserving of these amazing athletes.
I am planning to be at Worlds for the final preliminary games in Halifax all the way through the gold medal game. Subscribers and followers will get additional women’s hockey content during my time in Canada.
Please consider helping us reach our goal and pass along this Civil Boost to others.
The Patty Kaz nominees are …
This week, the 10 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award were announced. Each year, the Patty Kaz is awarded to the top player in NCAA Division I women’s ice hockey during the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four weekend.
Here is the list of the 10 finalists:
Patty Kaz History:
Defender Patty Kazmaier helped Princeton University to three consecutive Ivy League Championships (1982-’84). Shortly after finishing her college career, Patty battled a rare blood disease for more than a year before passing away in 1990 at the age of 28.
In 1998 the first Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award was awarded to Brandy Fisher from the University of New Hampshire. Fisher is the only Wildcat to win the annual award.
In 2000, Ali Brewer from Brown University was the first of only three goaltenders to ever win the Patty Kaz Memorial Award. The last netminder to win the award was Canadian Ann-Renee Desbiens (2017) from the University of Wisconsin.
Speaking of Canada, Jennifer Botterill is the first Canadian and the only two-time Patty Kaz winner in the history of the award. She is NOT in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but not hard to imagine that the Harvard Alumna will eventually get the nod.
Including Botterill’s two wins, Harvard University leads all programs with six Patty Kaz winners. The University of Wisconsin has produced five winners.
In xx years of the award, no player born outside of North America (United States & Canada specifically) has won the Patty Kaz. Alina Mueller of Northeastern is making a strong case to be the first European to win the award.
Mueller, Daryl Watts, Elizabeth Giguére, and Sarah Fillier have been a Top-10 finalist before. Watts won in 2018 during her freshman year at Boston College. She has since transferred to the University of Wisconsin.
If we look at the current NCAA Statistics, it would be no surprise to see any of the aforementioned four as the 2020 Patty Kaz winner. Giguére leads the country in career points (201), second in career assists (118) & assists per game (1.04), and is third in goals (83). Watts is tied for first overall in career goals (86), first in goals per game (0.79), and second in points per game (1.81) behind Fillier. The sophomore forward from Princeton is first in points per game (1.89) and assists per game (1.17). Fillier is also top-5 in goals per game (0.72).
This Week in Women’s Hockey
Reminder: First, the underlined words are the links. Second. CLICK these, even if you’ve already read them. Clicks = Attention from editors, producers and webmasters. Third, if you want to push out stuff you’ve written or read, email me! erica@ericalayala.com
Women’s hockey championships expected to draw crowds to N.S. next month.
Hutterite women’s hockey team raise money for Syrian family.
Briana Mastel & I joined NWHL Open Ice on Monday. Check it out!
The NHL announced an all-woman crew for March 8 game. A certain two-time Patty Kaz winner is among the crew. More analysis on this coming soon!
Nashville resident Allie LaCombe signs with Connecticut Whale for the remainder of the season.
Harvard earns home ice for ECAC Tournament.
“We encourage those women to try it. We can show them how to play, and the arena is great about providing equipment if we need it. We have a couple of girls playing now who are just learning how to skate,” Ashley Brown on the Bay City Women’s Hockey League.
Kelly Babstock represents Quinnipiac on the ECAC All-Decade Team.
Buffalo Beauts win a wild one in New Jersey.
Boycott? Strike? What exactly is the PWHPA doing? Very much enjoyed this post over on Hockey in Society. However, the NWHLPA had been working on certain aspects of the new contract since the season prior. That said, it might be fair to say the NWHL was moved to complete the deal because of the #ForTheGame strike.
Cornell wins ECAC regular season title.
Nevertheless, what Anya Packer and her team did in the last year and a half should not be lost. Have a listen to my interview with Anya from the fall.
The future of Canadian women’s hockey still in limbo a year later, but hope remains.
Tweet of the Week
Black Girl Hockey Club continues to be AMAZING!
Five at The IX: Lovisa Selander
Last week, I shared a conversation with Anya Packer about the Crossover into Business program. This week, I chat with Boston Pride and Team Sweden goaltender about her first impressions and expectations of the Harvard program. She is also a 2019 Patty Kaz Top-10 Finalist. Image from @TheBostonPride.
I wanted to talk about your participation in the Crossover into Business program. So we’ll start with the beginning, when did it cross your path? How did you learn about it?
I think it was actually, Anya Packer, who reached out to me, it was kind of, you know, just asked me if anyone was interested in kind of giving us the information. And I had my roommate, Amanda Pelkey did it two semesters ago, I think, and she really loved it. So I kind of already knew about it. And I just said yes, and applied.
Amazing. I understand it’s like a semester long program and you get the opportunity to have mentors that are in the MBA program. What has you most excited about the opportunity to learn in a business program?
It’s a great opportunity just to network, meet new athletes, and kind of meet the Harvard master students. But I think for me, I did engineering in college. And it was kind of just an interest area to learn a little bit more about and (this program) is tailored to however much you have time to work on it this semester. So it was kind of a perfect fit for me.
Have you thought about ways you might want to use some of what you learn as far as what you’re doing now or maybe what you aspire to to do?
I mean, I’m hoping. We’re kind of doing case reviews and I did one on the (Milwaulke Bucks) last week which was a very interesting to see the background of the NBA. And I think one of the cases that I really want to do too is about the US Soccer women’s team and their strike which is just sort of interesting. The cases are written in an easy way to follow along with the story and get to learn more. So I think it’s definitely useful information and kind of interesting.
Yeah, for sure. It’s funny, you mentioned the women’s soccer team, and they just got some really unprecedented support from the Men’s Team. They are heading into an Olympic year in the middle of this court battle. What about that was interesting to you?
I think just everything in general, actually. No, but I mean, I think we did it with the Swedish National Team this summer kind of negotiating for better deals. And, you know, it’s interesting to get to learn how they did it, how they went about it, and I think they were in a very unique seat where they were actually I mean, they were the more popular team The men can’t even touch the women’s soccer team, which is very interesting to kind of see it out of that perspective, too. Because I think a lot of the time the women are kind of the underdogs, but they had kind of hard, cold facts that we are selling out arenas, we are doing this and this and the men aren’t. Yeah. So be it would be really interesting just to learn more about their case, and then kind of take ideas where you get them where they apply.
Yes, that is right. We’ve also seen other women’s federations like the US Hockey team for example, go through similar fights. What is most staggering to you about the similarities between those different teams and the experience that you had and maybe some of the differences?
I don’t know if I have an educated answer to this one.
Selander laughs and then continues with this very educated response.
I mean, I think in general, I think women are kind of standing up for themselves right now. The Swedish national team, it wasn’t asking for that we wanted a salary. It was more we want better insurance, we want better travel. And I’m work compensation from when you take about six to seven weeks of vacation from your full time job. You need to be able to be compensated for that and not go into a tournament with the national team coming out a loss. And I think just I mean, the soccer team has done an amazing thing growing the sport, they’ve really you know, captured the fans hearts and they’re they continue to grow. So I think that’s something you can always learn from to see what steps they took to get to that level they are right now.
