Wasted talent: Elite female hockey players from Ottawa face end of competitive careers beyond university after CWHL team’s departure

Imagine if Nick Foligno, Jason Spezza and Matt Carkner suddenly had nowhere to play but the local Friday-night beer league.


Imagine the Ottawa Senators having back-to-back terrible seasons and getting dumped from the NHL for not being good enough.

Those are the types of scenarios that are currently unfolding for the Senators. No, it’s not those Senators, but the now-defunct Ottawa Senators Canadian Women’s Hockey League team.

After back-to-back seasons where they finished in last place with records of 5-23-2 and 4-20, the CWHL decided to exclude Ottawa from the league this season, stating a desire to have a more competitive league with three GTA teams (Brampton, Burlington and Toronto), Montreal and Boston one year after the Olympic Games.

But that didn’t result in the type of anger from fans, players and coaches that would certainly follow the NHL Senators suddenly getting the boot from Gary Bettman. The general feeling from players who are now competing in the four-team National Capital Women’s Hockey League (NCWHL) instead is one of disappointment, but understanding.

“I’d been a part of the program for so long as a player and as a GM (general manager), and it’s hard to see the players that did want to keep on playing left with no real place to play,” says Lyne Landry, who dressed on the blue line for Ottawa’s top women’s team from 1999 to 2009 and served as general manager during the Senators’ last two seasons. “But at the same time, in the women’s game, we always want to improve and showcase our game as very, very good hockey.”

The CWHL’s plan was to make the league as competitive as possible in hopes of attracting sponsors and eventually making it a professional league. When springtime discussions took place last year about Ottawa’s future – as well as that of Vaughan, which was also dropped – this year’s outlook wasn’t bright for the Senators.

Only eight players or so had committed for the next season, which was often about the same number that showed up for twice-a-week, two-hour practices with coach Brad Marsh. Ottawa sometimes barely managed a full bench of substitutes for road trips to Toronto since many players had family or work commitments.

“It didn’t look very good, so the league kind of decided ­– and rightfully so – that they wanted to project it as an elite league and as the highest level of women’s hockey in the world,” recounts Landry, whose team never had a true home rink, bouncing around between venues such as Barbara Ann Scott and Sandy Hill arenas.

“If you want to promote it and you want to be an elite league, then there are steps like this that need to be taken,” Landry says.Beer league with an edge
The disbandment of the Senators has resulted in a major talent-level rise for the NCWHL, which features the Roadrunners, the Huskies, the Ottawa Ice Cats and the Kanata Rangers.

Most of the ex-Senators dress for the Rangers, which is made up of a group of friends from all over the city who also play ball hockey and football together in the summer.

The league has all kinds of past members from Canadian national team programs, as well as United States and Canadian university stars.

Kim Kerr, a former University of Ottawa Gee-Gees All-Canadian, certainly enjoys playing in the NCWHL, although the once-a-week schedule with no practices is quite a bit different from when she was in school.

“It’s totally a different world,” says Kerr, who now teaches at Gloucester High School. “There we had off-ice, nutrition, sports psych, and here we show up 20 minutes before we get on the ice and play for fun.”

Skating for two hours a week is a lot more manageable for players who have full-time jobs as physiotherapists and lawyers, for example, notes another former Gee-Gee, Danika Smith.

“It’s tough to put in that kind of commitment and balance a career at the same time,” explains Smith, who participated in meetings about the CWHL squad’s future last year. “I think a lot of the girls who were on the Senators teams were probably at that point and were OK with not doing it any more, but there’s a lot of new girls coming up who are kind of stranded.

“After CIS or NCAA, they come back to Ottawa and all of a sudden, they don’t really have another step. They’re 21 or 22 and they’re retired from their elite hockey career because they just don’t have anywhere else to play.”

It’s a sad scenario for recent university graduates, laments Carleton University Ravens women’s hockey coach Shelley Coolidge.

“For me, the unfortunate part is that if I go back 25 or 30 years when I played, they’re in the exact same spot,” Coolidge recalls. “For as much as you think the game has moved forward on the women’s side, we need to continue to be the champions of our product. We can’t look to someone outside to lead it, it’s about each one of us taking charge and responsibility and continuing to move it forward.”

Coolidge believes Landry could have used a greater helping hand from players with tasks such as marketing the Senators, getting minor hockey teams out to their games, updating the website and finding volunteers to work the door and sell tickets.

She added that it was too bad that Ottawa was removed from the league, in particular because the NHL Senators backed the franchise by providing jerseys and some cash.

“They’re trying to get the NHL teams to support this league, and that’s one of the things I found baffling,” Coolidge states, acknowledging nonetheless that it simply can’t be argued that Ottawa wasn’t icing a competitive group. “I think maybe they missed an opportunity there and should have taken a harder look at Ottawa. It’s frustrating to see, but I also understand why they had to fold.”The glory days
It wasn’t that long ago that Ottawa was one of the best teams in the league. In 2006, the Ottawa Raiders finished second in the then-NWHL with a record of 21-8-4-3.

It’s no coincidence that the team had an owner at that time that put some extra money into the club. Peter Lefebvre, whose daughter was a Raiders goalie, provided a house in Manotick for several European players to stay in, a van to drive to the rink, and he set them up with jobs at a cafe.

“We had a few very, very good seasons,” recounts Landry, who’s played alongside Olympians Fiona Smith-Bell and Katie Weatherston in Ottawa. “Those few years were very successful because, I mean, money talks. It was a lot easier to get recruits for sure.”

The last few seasons after Lefebvre’s ownership ended were made all the more difficult because top college players from Ottawa were able to find work in Toronto and Montreal more easily and didn’t return home.
A return to CWHL?
Providing the type of support to players that existed previously – such as help finding employment – would be key to the success of any future CWHL team in Ottawa, notes Steve Gibson, the club general manager for the Senators organization that continues to run programs for teenaged girls.

“We’ve discussed it. We’re just watching how the CW goes this year,” notes Gibson, who isn’t sure how soon a return to the league would be possible. “I really hope that moving forward we can get back in there. But it’s going to take a lot more local support than just the Ottawa Senators and the Kanata Girls’ Hockey Association.”

Although she’s now distanced herself from involvement with the CWHL, Landry would also like to see a team back in Ottawa down the road.

“Here in Ottawa right now we have very, very, very good hockey players playing ‘AA’ hockey where you don’t practice, you play once a week, and it’s kind of wasted talent,” she says. “That’s the difference, I guess, between men’s and women’s hockey.

“We don’t get paid to play – we love to play, and we want to keep this game going.”