The Future of Hockey Is Here — and It’s Women on the Ice

My childhood was filled with memories of being outside, kicking the ball as far as I could across the field, and skating across my local community center’s rink every Saturday. I loved playing sports, and my childhood best friend loved it even more, particularly hockey. 

While I carefully practiced turns and my cross-overs religiously, she would fly down the ice, weaving around every passerby as if they were defenders of the other team. She carried this intensity on the ice. On the weekends we didn’t attend the free Saturday night skates, I’d sit in the stands and watch her play in our Tim Hortons-sponsored community girls league. Because of her, hockey felt like a women’s sport to me. She loved hockey, and it was what I celebrated about her. 

As I grew older, I noticed that outside of my childhood experiences, hockey was rarely seen as a women’s sport. Branded as hyper-masculine, I realized that hockey was widely recognized for its body checks and culture of toughness. And today, that image is finally shifting. Women’s sports are in the middle of a renaissance. 

From the record-breaking views during WNBA games to the surge in viewership in National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), women athletes are being recognized on a larger stage. Hockey is also part of this transformation. With the launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) in 2023, women’s hockey is becoming a viable career path for women athletes and inviting a new generation, with Asian American women leading the pack, to see themselves on the ice. 

How Hockey Became a Predominantly Male Sport

Hockey has gotten the reputation of being a violent sport due to its notorious loud body slams on the rink or the fights that break out on the sides. This masculine and aggressive image was crafted in the 1920s. Despite the rising number of women hockey players during and after World War I, sports journalists, arena owners, and hockey promoters decided to brand hockey as a masculine sport to generate more profits. As a result, women’s hockey was only ever able to exist in the margins. This gap between men’s and women’s opportunities only widened over the century. 

In 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL) was formed and leaned into the male spectacle brand of hockey. By 1967, the NHL had doubled its number of teams in the league, which attracted major television contracts and cemented men’s hockey as a profitable and professional sport. 

Meanwhile, women’s hockey was still battling for recognition. Professional women players had to pay out of their own pockets for ice time and equipment. Even by the time that women’s hockey debuted at the Olympics in 1998, more than seven decades after men’s hockey debut, it was still challenging for women to find professional hockey opportunities. Over the decades, professional women’s leagues like the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and the National Women’s Hockey League (later renamed as Premier Hockey Foundation) were formed.  However, the same barriers persisted. Players still had to cover the costs of equipment and travel while being paid a minimal salary, and many of the leagues faced financial strain and a limited fan base.

Redefining the Culture of Hockey

Then, a turning point arrived in 2023. The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) was formed. The PWHL is the first women’s league to resemble a professional organization rather than a semi-professional one. The PWHL offers players salaries and benefits and multi-year contracts, rights protected by the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association. For the first time in history, women’s hockey can be a full-time career. 

The league is financially backed by the Mark Walter Group, owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, which also provides women’s hockey with long-term financial stability. Paired with major broadcast deals with CBC and ESPN, women’s hockey has been able to be a part of mainstream sports, amass a large fan base, and attract media coverage. 

The first PWHL draft in September 2023 made headlines around the world. Hockey cities like Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, Ottawa, New York, and Toronto were part of the league’s inaugural team rosters, which helped develop a loyal fan base. This excitement quickly carried itself to the ice. Only in its second year, the PWHL surpassed one million fans in attendance on March 16, 2025. Furthermore, the attendance of that game is the fourth record that the PWHL has broken for U.S. attendance at a professional women’s hockey game. This milestone shows the increasing popularity of women’s hockey. 

Culturally, the PWHL has set itself apart from other hockey leagues as one that is not afraid to challenge tradition. The league actively embraces its LGBTQ+ players, holding the league’s first Pride Unity Games this past year. Each of the six teams hosted a Pride Unity Game in their home city that included tributes to the local LGBTQ+ community and partnerships with local and national LGBTQ+ organizations. On the ice, the PWHL has also experimented with new rules to keep the game fresh, such as the “jail break” and “penalty kill” concepts. Together, these efforts signal how hockey is being redefined as a diverse and innovative sport. 

Asian American Women on the Ice

While the PWHL is rewriting hockey’s narrative, the presence of Asian Americans in professional hockey remains a largely untold story. Minority groups continue to be heavily underrepresented in the modern hockey scene, with only 7% of the league’s players coming from minority backgrounds, according to the NHL’s 2022 Diversity & Inclusion Report. 

This underrepresentation is also present at the international hockey level. For example, in the lead-up to the 2022 Winter Olympics, China’s women’s and men’s hockey teams recruited Chinese heritage descent players who were born and trained in North America. More than half of the women’s hockey team were neutralized players, highlighting how even national programs rely on a limited pool of minority talent. 

Despite these challenges, Asian American women continue to break racial barriers in hockey and pave a more inclusive way for future generations. 

Julie Chu’s Lasting Legacy

One of the trailblazers on and off the ice is Julie Chu, the first Asian American woman to compete for the U.S. Olympic hockey team. A child of Chinese immigrants, Julie Chu first began playing hockey on her brother’s team and quickly excelled at the sport, even deferring her Harvard acceptance to compete in the Olympics. During her collegiate career, she was the all-time leading scorer and was recognized as the top female athlete in women’s college ice hockey with the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award. While captaining her team at multiple Winter Games, she earned four Olympic medals, becoming the first Asian American to win an Olympic Winter medal outside of figure skating. 

Beyond Julie Chu’s athletic achievements, Chu is a visible and celebrated figure in the LGBTQ+ community. She is married to Caroline Ouellette, the former captain of Canada’s national team. Now, having started a family and coaching together at the Concordia Stingers, they use their platform to mentor young athletes and foster a welcoming environment for players of all identities. Julie Chu has created a legacy for queer and Asian American athletes. 

Building on the foundation Chu helped establish, a new generation of Asian American players is beginning to make its mark in the PWHL. Chanreet Bassi was recently drafted to play in the upcoming season for the new Vancouver team and made history as the league’s first South Asian player. She had a standout career playing for the University of British Columbia, where she scored 116 points across 128 games, tying with the school’s points record. Her presence in the PWHL also represents a roadmap where young athletes from community rinks can envision a clear path to professional hockey. 

Similarly, Akane Shiga is the first Japanese player to join the PWHL, playing as a forward for Ottawa during the inaugural season. Shiga began playing in Japan before moving abroad to compete at higher levels. She represented Japan in the 2022 Olympics and played in multiple IIHF Women’s World championships. Her path to playing in the PWHL reflects the global nature of women’s hockey and how players in Asia can now find opportunities to play professionally in North America. 

The Future Belongs to Women’s Hockey

The PWHL continues to grow with two new teams – PWHL Vancouver and PWHL Seattle – joining the league for this year’s upcoming season. The league’s continued success overlaps with the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympic Games, where we can hopefully see players from the PWHL compete at the international stage. 

Looking ahead, the PWHL represents a new era of hockey that is welcoming of women of all identities and is a viable potential career for them. And for me, this new era of hockey is a chance for me to see the sport that I love to watch transform nationally into the sport I always imagined it to be. I always pictured arenas like the one I went to, cheering my best friend – ones filled with fans from all different walks of life and players who reflect my own identity. In this vision, hockey is a sport where women are celebrated as fiercely as men. And today, with the PWHL, more and more young girls and women can step onto the ice and feel that the sport belongs to them, too.