PWHL player Emma Greco, from Burlington, Ont., says TV has made the difference for women's hockey
CBC
Burlington's Emma Greco played for two other professional hockey leagues before the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL), but says she's never seen the kind of interest the women's game is experiencing now – and credits it largely to television.
"People I haven't talked to in a while, they'll message me and say, 'I was watching you on TV,' or they'll post me in an Instagram story saying they were watching my game at a bar somewhere," said Greco, a former Burlington Barracuda who, as a defender for Minnesota, has had nine shots and four penalty minutes in the PWHL this year.
"It's crazy."
In Greco's previous leagues – the Canadian Women's Hockey League and the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) – most games weren't televised, making it nearly impossible for fans who couldn't be there in person regularly to follow the rivalries or get to know the players.
"Our championship game was only on TV. It wasn't a consistent thing," says Greco, whose current squad led the league for much of January, but is now second in the standings behind Montreal. "It's been a lot of fun so far."
Broadcasts of the league's games in Canada are shared between CBC, Sportsnet and TSN, with the games airing on CBC also appearing on CBC Gem.
The league said its first game reached 2.9 million viewers.
Greco, 28, grew up in Burlington's Aldershot neighborhood, attending Maplehurst Public School and Aldershot High School, where she "played a bunch of sports… hockey, soccer, field hockey, basketball, badminton."
Outside of school, she played hockey for the Burlington Barracudas up to Grade 9.
Fellow Burlington Barracudas alumnus and PWHL member Renata Fast, who plays on the new league's Toronto team, spoke to CBC's Metro Morning last week on the importance of visibility and marketing in developing the women's game.
Fast, born in Hamilton before moving to Burlington, was one of the PWHL players to participate in a new official event within National Hockey League All-Star Weekend, a televised 3-on-3 women's showcase last Thursday in Toronto.
She says the interest the league has had, including fully selling out the entire home season in Toronto on the first day tickets were available, shows there's a big appetite for women's hockey if people get a chance to see it for themselves, something that often starts with TV coverage.
"We've been playing professional hockey in the past but we never had the support we do now," Fast told CBC. "It's just so cool to see that when there is investment behind something and the right people are in place to market it properly, people want to show up."
Fast said girls she has coached have said they are also watching the games on TV, which show them there is a future for them in the sport.
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