PWHL fantasy camp lets players live out their on-ice dreams

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About half way into its second year in existence, the PWHL has given modern-day sports a masterclass in how to unveil a new league.

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But perhaps the best thing about this league is it does not rest on past successes or triumphs. It’s always pushing to expand the brand, improve the game and, in general, just make women’s professional hockey in North America as successful as it can possibly be.

One of those early successes has been reaching and bringing into the fold the younger generation — not just of young girls, but boys, too.

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But the fanbase, the base that buys the tickets and buys the merchandise is primarily an older one. While the league is setting an example for the next generation and even running clinics for them, it was felt there was a need to give something back to that older generation that has been supporting the league from a financial standpoint.

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Enter the first PWHL Fantasy Hockey Camp, which was part of the league’s Battle on Bay Street weekend.

All told, 37 campers from as far west as California and as far east as Newfoundland forked over $1,500 each for the opportunity to experience a PWHL practice, meet some of the true legends of the women’s game and participate in question-and-answer panels with members of the Toronto Sceptres, take the ice with a PWHL coaching staff for their own workout and then cap it off with seats to the big game at Scotiabank Arena featuring the Scepters and the New York Sirens.

Oh, and for good measure there was a meet-and-greet with more players and PWHL types after the game at Real Sports.

As Hefford said after the two-day event concluded, it was a steady barrage of smiles throughout the weekend.

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One of those smiles that remained plastered over her face for the better part of the 48-hour camp belonged to St. John’s, Nfld., hockey player and hockey enthusiast Kiki Moore McConnell.

McConnell saw the camp advertised on Facebook and, with the camp ending on the day of her 71st birthday, she couldn’t think of a better present to herself than to become one of the campers.

McConnell still plays in a league back home that her and her friends refer to as ‘No Kill Hockey’ because it has no body checking and no slap shots “because none of us want to get hurt,” she said.” We’re too old to get hurt.”

McConnell had to go the extra mile to take part in this camp. Because she was wintering in Tucson, Ariz., when she discovered the event, she didn’t have her equipment with her so rather than spend the extra money to have her equipment shipped to her, she took a trip to Phoenix and bought new stuff for the camp.

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The skates were a little stiff, she said, but otherwise it was all worth it.

First and foremost on her list of things to do was track down Sceptres’ forward Maggie Connors, who, like McConnell, hails from St. John’s.

“I made sure to pack the (provincial flag, which she showed off the Connors),” she said.

But there also was the chance to meet national team star Sarah Nurse, a Wisconsin grad and a key member of the Sceptres. McConnell made sure to wear her Badgers jersey to catch Nurse’s eye. She was successful in that endeavor as well.

But more than anything for McConnell, the camp was a chance to support women’s hockey, something she has been doing for as long as she can remember.

“I just wanted to see some of the people that I really admire,” she said. “These are the women that are growing our sport. When I started playing there were very few women playing. We always got like the worst ice times because no one took us very seriously and it was frustrating,” she said.

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“The level of play here, (on the Sceptres) I mean the women are so good. It just makes it all very special.”

McConnell said she was not at all surprised to see the distances people travelled to take part in the camp. In addition to her own journey from Tucson, via St. John’s, there were native Californians in the group, a few from Manitoba and even a coupe from Virginia.

“I’m not surprised because women that get interested in a sport like this are going to be a little more adventurous anyway,” McConnell reasoned.

Jayna Hefford is no stranger to anyone with even the most remote interest in the PWHL. The recently promoted executive vice president of hockey operations was one of the “legends of the game” the campers got to skate with during their practice under the watchful eye of Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan and his staff.

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Hefford, who has a very full dance card these days with the PWHL, got a rare chance to put the blades on and was thrilled with the opportunity.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “I don’t skate that much anymore, but any time I get a chance to be back on the ice, it’s always fun.

“I actually didn’t think I would put my equipment on,” Hefford said. “I thought I would just go out there and push pucks with a track suit on, but then Cassie Campbell showed up and said, ‘No, I’m going full gear,’ so we all did.”

As with most of the things the PWHL has been doing since it hit the ice, this was a first-time event.

“This is something that had never existed before in women’s hockey that we see occasionally in the men’s game when they do something like this,” she said of the fantasy camp. “We really wanted to provide an experience for some of our fans that are adults — we focus a lot on young girls with clinics and that sort of thing but we know that we have a really strong and loyal fanbase in the older generation of women who never had this opportunity so the vision was really to provide some unique experience that they had never had before and get an inside glimpse into what the PWHL is and of course meet a lot of the people within the game and some legends of the game so it was really a great couple of days. I don’t think anyone stopped smiling. It lived up to everything we hoped it would be for all those participants.”

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And, the good news: This is just the beginning for these kinds of events and the PWHL.

“We envisioned this as being something really unique and different and something our fans would absolutely love and we wanted to test this out and make sure that vision was something that could come to life and by all accounts, it was wildly successful,” Hefford said.

“So we envision doing this in other locations and maybe another six markets or maybe even in markets that don’t have a team, but we think it’s a huge opportunity to cater to these fans of the PWHL.”

The event was something Hefford believes everyone at the PWHL head offices was considering in one form or another, but it came to life under the guidance of vice president of hockey operations Annie Camins and Kristen Richards, who heads up the grassroots programs for the PWHL.

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“All of us have seen this (sort of thing) elsewhere but those two worked really hard this year to start building out this program outside of the league games,” Hefford said. “It’s definitely their baby in terms of the work they put in, but I think it was just part of the vision for the entire group as we continued to build the game.”

Ryan, for his part, said he had a lot of fun with it and was particularly impressed with how detailed some of the women were, even when it came down to the drills.

He wanted to make the whole thing as realistic and as close to what the team does on a daily basis as possible, so just as he does with his Sceptres players, he delivered video of the drills he would be using in practice the night before to the campers so they could familiarize themselves with the material and allow the practice to move along at a good clip.

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Ryan was caught off guard a little the next morning as he went in to welcome the campers and just check to make sure there weren’t any questions about the drills.

One of the campers pulled out a binder — she had printed out hard copies of each drill — and wanted to go through all of them individually.

Turned out that camper was a coach back home in California and was interested in not just how the drills were run, but what Ryan hoped the players would get from each drill so she could pass that on to her players back home.

A coach who jumps in with both feet like that had Ryan smiling and grinning as much as any of the campers.

mganter@postmedia.com

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