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(Photo: USA Cycling)
2. Minnesota Frost take their second PWHL final 🏒
There have only been two PWHL finals to date — called the Walter Cup — and the Minnesota Frost have now won both of them.
All four (!) games in the finals series against the Ottawa Charge went to overtime — one game even went into triple overtime and became the longest PWHL game ever. And in the end the Frost won 2-1 in front of 11,024 fans 🏆
But, the team won't stay together next year...
What's next? A brutal expansion draft
With the PWHL expanding to Seattle and Vancouver for the next season, it's time for a (wild) expansion draft! The existing six PWHL teams will only be able to protect three (!) players from being drafted — which means the two new teams will each take 12 players from across the league, decimating current teams' line-ups.
Attendance numbers and tickets sales have been up 33% even over last year. Merchandise sales doubled. And a nine-city tour saw crowds as big as 19,000. So the league has been left with a tension: They want the new teams to have good players and a chance to build a fanbase, but they also don't want existing teams to lose their growing fan bases. A conundrum 😕
"It's a great buffet that those expansion teams have."
3. Female athletes continue to deal with stalking and harassment
When Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas shared a story of being stalked in airports, other female athletes chipped in to say it'd happened to them, too.
"It happens to all of us."
With women's sports on the rise, female athletes' prominence has also risen — and many leagues aren't always equipped to deal with the harassment and hate their players receive. The athletes, who typically are paid less than male athletes, also tend to have less ability to hire security or protect themselves. Online anonymity and sports betting has contributed to the targeting of athletes, particularly women — who face higher levels of online abuse in and out of sports. And the stories of stalking, violence, sexual assault, or abuse span multiple sports.
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A study from the NCAA found rampant online harassment and abuse targeting student-athletes. Of that 18% was sexual, and female basketball players received three times more threats than male basketball players.
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World Athletics also studied the abuse targeting track and field athletes and found 87% of it targeted female athletes during the Tokyo Olympics — and 63% was aimed at just TWO female runners.
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According to the UN, 21% of females experience sexual abuse as a child in sport.
READ: "The Troubling Rise of Harassment and Stalking in Women's Sports"
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