When the Boston Pride reported for training camp in September, second-year coach Paul Mara gathered the group for a quick pep talk before the team took the ice. It had been a tumultuous offseason for everyone in women's hockey. The NWHL's competing league, the CWHL, folded in May, citing an unsustainable business model. The shock waves caused many players to question what the future of their sport looked like. Some 200 women formed the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association -- and vowed to sit out in any pro league this season.
Mara, a former NHL defenseman, still believed in the NWHL. Was it the perfect league? No. But it was still young and trending in the right direction.
"There was so much momentum and growth in women's hockey, especially after [Team USA] won the gold medal [at the 2018 Olympics]," Mara said. "So to miss a season for things that are currently unattainable in the current climate, it's just sad to see these players not playing."
Mara spent the summer working the phones. He scouted prospective players, talking to them about their goals and calling their college coaches to vet their work ethic. He was involved in every signing.
"I wanted to find the best players," Mara said, "but also the right players."
Of the 20 players on the Pride's roster last season, only seven remained. But Mara was proud of the team he put together, and he addressed them in September.
"This was the team that we handpicked and hand-selected because everyone wants to be here," he told the Pride. "Everyone wants to work hard, have fun, and they want to be here because they love hockey. The pay right now in this league is not what everyone wants it to be, but it's growing. If we keep doing what we're doing and keep promoting the game like we have, it will keep growing and growing and growing. We're going to have an awesome season. We're going to enjoy it. Let's get started."
Mara was right. Boston is having an awesome season, and truly enjoying it -- perhaps more than anyone could have forecast.
The Pride have become the toast of the NWHL. At 20-1-0, they've already clinched the top seed in the Isobel Cup playoffs, which don't begin until March. At this weekend's NWHL All-Star Game in Boston, the Pride will have eight representatives, which somehow feels too low. They have scored the most goals in the league (26 more than the second-place Minnesota Whitecaps) and have allowed the fewest, giving them a whopping plus-66 goal differential.
The Pride play a fast brand of hockey, predicated on quick transitions and decision-making. Boston has two capable goalies (All-Star Lovisa Selander, with a .934 save percentage, and Victoria Hanson, at .919) and balanced scoring throughout the lineup.
Boston rolls out three productive lines and gets points from the blue line too; 13 of the 18 skaters have double-digit point totals. Captain Jillian Dempsey, the league's all-time leading scorer and an All-Star captain, is pacing everyone with 36 points (and 15 goals) in just 21 games, winning 62% of her faceoffs. McKenna Brand is right behind her, with 17 goals and 31 points.
"I haven't been on a team that's this deep up and down the lineup maybe since my youth days," Dempsey said.
Added defenseman Kaleigh Fratkin: "You could see the chemistry building from the beginning of the season. And it kept building, and building. It's been one of the coolest things to see."
"What I do tell people is: My team is awesome. My team is the best team in women's hockey, and the best team in pro hockey, and leave it at that. People who come to watch our games start to realize that." Boston Pride coach Paul Mara
It's probably not a coincidence that the Pride are the only team in the league that is privately owned. A group of investors, led by Boston local Miles Arnone, purchased the team in September. Arnone hired a team president -- former NWHL deputy commissioner Hayley Moore -- and committed to providing the team all the resources it needed to succeed, within reason.
"Miles is very hands-on," Moore said. "He's at every game. He's in touch every single day. Most days he's in the same office as me and taking meetings with me. He's wanting to learn as much as he can, while instilling his business knowledge and resources on us."
Arnone took stock of the team with many early season meetings with Moore, Mara and the players.
"To be honest, what this team really needed was a little TLC," Arnone said.
So this season, Boston flew to Buffalo for a game instead of making the seven-plus-hour bus ride on a Friday night -- which players appreciated since most of them have typical 9-to-5 jobs.
The league distributes apparel and equipment to all teams, but Arnone went further, issuing winter jackets and under-apparel. Warrior provides sticks for the league, but if players preferred another company, "he was willing to go outside of that to make sure players had what they wanted and were comfortable with," Fratkin said. "It's the little things like that which go a long way."
Stick tape, fruit, snacks and Gatorade are always available in the locker room, plus there are meals before and after games, which Mara says "wasn't always the case last season." The players didn't love the rink where they were initially practicing, so they met with Arnone.
"We said the condition of the rink and locker room setup are not conducive to our group," Fratkin said. "Right away, he implemented a change. We went to a better facility, a place where we had a full-time locker room."
While the NWHL didn't provide exact attendance figures, it said the Pride's two November games at Warrior Arena (which seats 850) were at near capacity. The Pride sold out their last two home games and are on pace to sell out the home regular-season finale on Feb. 15 -- and they sell standing room.
After the first few practices, the team got together and discussed goals. They wanted to win the Isobel Cup, of course; Boston had not won since the league's inaugural season, in 2016. But they also discussed how they could get there. And a big emphasis was on just showing up.
"The last couple years, it felt like practice almost had an optional feel," Dempsey said. "And we were like, 'We gotta get people to practice. Let's go!'"
The team has two practices a week. Mara said that last year, they had a full team for practice only twice. This year, Mara said, "95% of practices" have had perfect attendance.
"That's when I knew it would be a special group," Mara said. "When everyone started showing up and everyone was determined to work hard. I knew they were committed."
Mara himself has become passionate about the women's game -- and especially coaching in the NWHL. After his last NHL season in 2011, he took a high school coaching job on Cape Cod. He briefly returned to play in the AHL and ECHL but retired for good in 2015 and moved back to Massachusetts full time to coach at his old prep school. He got a call from former teammate Chris Drury, who said USA Hockey needed someone to help with its women's team ahead of a series against Canada in 2016. He was an assistant coach for the U.S. women's team at the 2017 world championships and 2018 Olympics before being hired by the Pride ahead of last season.
Mara admits his knowledge of women's hockey before his coaching career was "zero."
"But as soon as I stepped on the ice with the women, I realized how talented they were and how willing they were to learn and improve every day," Mara said. "I've learned to love the women's game."
Mara loved the speed on his team and built his philosophy around that. His practices are always structured. He doesn't spend too much time on the board; he maximizes the time by letting the players get out and do drills.
"He says 'Go fast!' in pretty much every single practice, every single drill," Dempsey said. "We're trying to not do too much. If you have the puck on your stick, look to make the next play pretty quickly, without rushing. Not trying to over-stick handle. Make passes a second quicker."
There have been several moments this season when the Pride realized they were putting together something special. Dempsey points to a Dec. 21 game at Buffalo. The Pride were used to scoring first, but the Beauts scored on their first shift and then went ahead 2-0 in the first period.
"We came out pretty flat," Dempsey said. "But none of us panicked. We trusted our game"
Three quick goals later -- including two on the power play -- and the Pride were up 3-2 entering the first intermission. They went on to win 7-2.
Amid the summer turmoil, the NWHL made several improvements to stay viable in its fifth season. It expanded the schedule to 24 regular-season games and increased the salary cap to $150,000 per team -- up 50% from $100,000 last season. Additionally, for the first time, players are receiving a 50% split of revenue from all league-level sponsorship and media deals. That includes the league's three-year streaming partnership with Twitch. While the league leaves salary disclosure up to the players, some on the Pride signed for $15,000, which means they're making close to $20,000 because of the sponsorship and media deals. That's not a livable wage, but it's not bad for 24 games and two practices a week.
Even still, when Arnone bought the team, he knew it was a risk.
"The PWHPA's objective was to obviate the NWHL, to eliminate it effectively, to cause it to fold or whatever in hopes of creating something new," Arnone said. "So I knew that going in. I did a lot of my own research into A) whether that was likely, or B) whether that was a good idea. I decided that no it wasn't and no it wasn't. There was a long-term operating risk on whether we could generate revenue, but the existential risk was whether this would exist in a year."
Not only is Arnone confident the NWHL will thrive, but he also believes his investment will inspire others to get involved, as the Pride have become the league's model franchise. Arnone says other potential owners have reached out to pick his brain. The league is eyeing expansion for the 2020-21 season.
For now, the Pride are only focused on finishing what they started.
"A lot of people, a lot of my buddies in hockey, ask me, 'Hey, what's going on with this boycott?'" Mara said. "I try to avoid answering questions on it. And what I do tell people is: My team is awesome. My team is the best team in women's hockey, and the best team in pro hockey, and leave it at that. People who come to watch our games start to realize that."
Mara said he has had a few friends come to check out a game this season, and they almost always leave saying the exact same thing: "These players are phenomenal."
Mara's response?
"Yeah, I know."
