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(Photo: Ultraman World Championship)
2. PWHL starts its second season 🏒 with new fans and new schedule
After a successful inaugural season, the Pro Women's Hockey League dropped the puck for the first games of Season 2 this past weekend.
New to the league? Want to know what's going on? Feisty's Maya Smith put together a primer for new hockey fans 🏒
The teams
⚓️ Boston Fleet
🛡 Montréal Victoire
🔥 Ottawa Charge
🥶 Minnesota Frost
🧜♀️ New York Sirens
🔱 Toronto Sceptres
Last season, Minnesota beat Boston in the finals of Walter Cup championship. MVP Natalie Spooner, who plays for Toronto, is still out from ACL surgery. And everyone will be watching #1 draft pick, Sarah Fillier, for New York.
The season
This year, each team will play 30 regular season games before the playoffs start on May 6 — which includes six head-to-head match-ups between every team.
And there will be nine neutral site games as the PWHL takes their play to new cities, like Vancouver, Denver, and Detroit. That includes matches at large NHL venues!
What's new?
Logos! Team names! New venues!
After temporary jerseys last season, all the teams have new looks and new names. New York has also moved into one primary venue at the Prudential Center. And the Toronto and Montreal teams have moved into bigger venues — Toronto will play at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, which holds around 8,000 fans, and Montreal has moved into Place Bell.
The league also plans to add two new expansion teams in 2025-26.
How to watch
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Canada: CBC will broadcast 17 games on Saturday afternoons & TSN will air most of the rest of the games
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USA: YouTube & local broadcasters will also air the games for Boston, New York, and Minnesota games
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International: YouTube
READ: The new Ice Warriors Magazine
WATCH: Players Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey are opening up about their relationship and wedding
3. NWSL star Barbra Banda becomes target of online harassment
After the BBC named the NWSL's Orlando Pride's Barbra Banda 🇿🇲 the women's "Footballer of the Year," critics in the UK — including JK Rowling — criticized the BBC for "spitting in women's faces" and suggested that Banda was a trans woman or a man.
This is not the case.
What happened?
Banda, who has been a girl since birth and always competed as one (ie. she is a cis woman), is believed to have been born with naturally higher levels of testosterone.
However, regulations at the Africa Women's Cup of Nations required women competing in the tournament in 2022 to have lower levels of testosterone than the international standards at the World Cup or Olympics or in the NWSL, where Banda currently plays. It is believed this is why Banda, a star for Zambia, wasn't allowed to play in qualifying tournaments there — though no official explanation was given and the whole mess was handled poorly.
What is clear is Banda is a woman and has always competed as a woman, with whatever natural advantages she was born with (as many sports stars are).
This is likely why soccer officials from all over the world have now come out in support of her: USWNT's British coach Emma Hayes and the executive director of the NWSL.
LISTEN: Women's Sports and Gender Panic
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