Clarkson University became the first non-WCHA team to win the Women’s Frozen Four, but there are obstacles ahead. (Photo courtesy of womenplayball.com)
HAMDEN — For NCAA Division I Women’s Ice Hockey programs, the appearance of expansion might just be smoke and mirrors.
Despite an increase in programs from 20 to 35 since 1999, according to a University of Minnesota study in 2013, 42.9 percent of all Women’s Ice Hockey programs had women on its coaching staff, and only 25 percent of all Women’s Ice Hockey head coaches were women. For Quinnipiac Associate Head Coach Cassandra Turner, she played when things were different.
Turner played college hockey at Brown University from 1999-2003, and during that time, Turner said that the number of female coaches was much higher than it is now. She said that during her first season, 65 percent of all head coaches in Women’s Ice Hockey were women. During the 2000-01 season, the NCAA began sponsoring the sport and hosting a national championship, something Turner got to experience first-hand, playing against Minnesota-Duluth in the national championship in 2002.
When it comes to gender inequality for head coaches, the numbers don’t lie.
Turner left college, but not the sport of hockey. She played semi-professional hockey before she was hired as an assistant coach at Colgate University. However, her experience at Colgate did not go as planned. She left after the first season, and has made Quinnipiac University her home ever since.
“For me, as a female, as I’ve been looking, and making my decision to come to Quinnipiac I wanted to make sure that I was surrounding myself with men who believed in what women could accomplish,” Turner said.
Playing and coaching opportunities tie in very closely with Title IX, which requires that people do not discriminate against anyone in a federally funded program on the basis of sex. Although players are getting opportunities to play, when it comes to female coaches across the country, has Title IX begun to drop the ball?
During her time at Brown, Turner played under Head Coach Margaret “Digit” Murphy, who is arguably one of the best coaches in the sport’s history, as well as one of the advocates that kept pushing for the sport to get sponsored by the NCAA. Unfortunately, Murphy has since retired, and she is not the only one.
(Tweet found via Topsy.com)
News came out on April 24 that Head Coach Shannon Desrosiers, who led the Clarkson Golden Knights to a national championship this year, is stepping away as well. Because of this, Lyneene Richardson, Quinnipiac’s Associate Director of Athletics for Academics fears that Women’s Ice Hockey may be taking a step back.
“A lot of those female coaches … they’re not in coaching anymore,” Richardson said. “They were the ones that started it all, you know. They were the ones that fought to be where they’re at.”
Richardson is a forerunner of her own. She gets up early every Tuesday and Thursday morning to teach “Women In Sports,” a discussion-based course being offered for the first time this spring. For Richardson, it’s her first dabble into teaching. She talks mostly about what has changed over the past 40 years, thanks to both Title IX and its activists like tennis star Billie Jean King or Jackie Robinson. However, Richardson said that unlike King or Robinson’s stories of fighting for equality, not many people know how far a sport like Women’s Ice Hockey has progressed over the years.
“We don’t have the help of the pioneers, and they’re not valued,” Richardson said. “I think the pioneers in women’s sports drop by the wayside and people don’t know their name.”
Turner goes beyond knowing those names, because she has worked with many of them. She talks about her experiences to many of her players, including sophomore Lindsey West, who up until going to Quinnipiac, never played under a female coach.
“If it’s something they know and love and can do to further somebody else’s ability to play hockey, then gender does not matter,” West said.
Coach Turner is not the only person creating good relationships, though. The rest of the team is making names for themselves in the local community. The team has built a strong relationship with the Shoreline Sharks, an all-girls youth hockey team in Guilford. The Women’s Ice Hockey team’s goal is to not only teach the children how to play the game; they aim to make the kids learn to love the sport. When the team is not busy, the Sharks can be found cheering the Bobcats on at the TD Bank Sports Center for games, and even practices. Players like sophomore Nicole Brown have taken notice.
“It means so much to them and it means a lot to us when they come out. I think it’s like a symbiotic relationship almost that we need them as much as they need us,” Brown said.
If the Quinnipiac Women’s Ice Hockey team continues to stay involved by giving to the local community, that same community is going to give back. Behind a record attendance this year, they continue to grow awareness and are pushing for success. Simultaneously, they are working to send a message that when it comes to playing and coaching opportunities, gender should not matter. For Turner, she does not want to just see the change; she wants to be the part of it.
“I don’t know the answer to how women are going to progress,” Turner said. “ … But I want to be there to help figure it out.”
DeCosta News 