pwhlottawa

[pwhlottawa]

there's someone called william eklund in the sdhl chats. would be funny if it was the guy wouldn't it... i choose to believe

[pwhlottawa]

i fucking love having hockey in the morning

[pwhlottawa]

Wanted to make a proper team by team preview with highlighted and stuff but I’ve been too busy with work but in my excitement here’s a few thoughts on each Sdhl roster just rambling off the top of my head

Brynäs:

-arguably the best top six with thuvik/nylund/svensson/carlsson/tulus/vainiika

-hessellvall is one of Swedens top prospects and made the senior team this year. At only 16 it’s hard to say if this will be her breakout year on that level as she may need time to adjust to the physicality but I’m excited to watch

-defense will be relying on čajanová and Poulin-labelle offensively, waxin as the stay at home centerpiece, and for young players ytfeldt and karlsson to take steps forward. It’s a little shaky but still effective

-luckily they do have one of the best tandems in goal you can ask for with peslarová and nystrøm

-expected to be one of the best teams

Djugårdens

-quite a bit of turnover of their forward group, but still have captain brette pettet and one of their top forwards Isabelle leijonhielm. Isabelle had 16 points in 35 games last year in her age 17 season so will be fun to see if she can further break out. Also coming back is young Czech player Linda vocetková who had a rough start to the year but really found her game after captaining the Czech u18 team, so will be interesting to see if she can continue that momentum

-Maddie posick and Emma forsgren are the core of this defense group, which added Charlotte akervik and klára jandušiková this offseason for decent depth

-in goal will be another former frost player, Lauren bench, with Lia leiderö palmlöv backing up after doing so for two solid seasons

-probably near the bottom of the table trying to stay out of relegation, but despite their turnover they always seem to find a way to finish middle of the table, so we’ll see how they do

Frölunda

-some major names on the forward group for this team like reigning Sdhl mvp Elisa Holopainen, Andrea dalen, Hanna Olsson, sofie lundin. They lost some star power like karvinen in the offseason, but added some more secondary scoring depth like Emily nix and Jenna Goodwin.

-have four players I’d consider top prospects in Ebba Westerlind, Nellie Svensson, edit Danielsson, and moa stridh. All but stridh played on the Sdhl level last year too and I expect them to take another step forward this year

-Sanni rantala and Paula bergström are your top defenders, Andrea brändli is in goal having come over from MoDo hockey.

-this team will be fighting for first place and won it all last year

Färjestad

-this newly promoted team is built from the net out, with their best player arguably being goaltender ida boman who previously played with djugårdens and is on the national team

-decent defensive group with Alexie guay, Annie silén, and lene tendenes. They also have veteran Michelle Löwenhielm, who played forward for most of her career at a high level, switching to defense.

-lots of unknown in this forward group. Lauren bellefontaine and Emma múren are probably the most proven scorers at this level, and Nellie norén and Kajsa bråten are interesting prospects. Katie Chan was also a solid free agent add from the ncaa. Lots of high floor low ceiling players but not many offensive powerhouse players

-Will likely be fighting to avoid relegation

HV71:

-lost their two top scorers, Elin and Hilda Svensson, in the offseason, but was able to keep its next highest contributors in Julia nearis, Teghan Inglis, and Kennedy bobyck

-this is a team that will be leaning very heavily on its import players

-improved significantly in goal by acquiring Stephanie neatby, Sdhl veteran who won the championship with Frölunda last year

-also acquired one of my favorite prospects, Ema tóthová, from Slovakia for the year before she goes to play for Ohio state next year

-Will likely be at the bottom of the table and relying heavily on neatby to go sicko mode

-oldest Swedish born player is 23 so…most of the Swedes on this team are developing young players. Meja andersson on defense is the most intriguing / highly touted prospect to me but ymmv

Linköping

-bit of a down year last year and looking to bounce back by bringing back their core of players plus some good additions

-Sara hjalmarsson, who was their top scorer last year, was selected in the PWHL draft. She signed with the team to start the year but will leave sometime in late October / November to join the sceptres

-up front is a fun cast of characters. Haruka toko, the team Japan star who is about a year and a half removed from being one of the leagues top scorers, is returning after missing most of last year with injury. Lova blom will be entering her third season with the team alongside her and play top minutes. Hana haasová was acquired in free agency should be a solid contributor as well

-this team does still have a “who is going to score after hjalmarsson leaves” question that blom and toko can’t solve on their own. They’ll hope some of their young players step up or that acquisitions like Maddie leidt from the Ewhl/dfel and Ellie kaiser from rpi can exceed expectations

-Lindsay Agnew and Ayaka Hitosato will lead the defense, with Eve savander, Olivia sohrner, and Sophie Helgeson rounding it out

-in net is proven great duo ebba svensson träff and jordine heller. Svensson träff is one of the most underrated goalies in the league imo and can absolutely carry this team

-very similar to HV71, they will rely on goaltending and import players to try to avoid relegation

Luleå

-if you’ve watched any previous seasons you already know wtf is going on. Another contender for best forward group with Petra Nieminen, Akane Shiga, Sarah bujold, linnéa Johansson, Jaycee magwood. They also added one of the top available ncaa free agents post PWHL draft in Jenna Donohue

-that said, they did lose viivi vainikka and Emma nordin who were two of their top producers, and will need to replace that production. A full season of bujold will help

-defense has some questions as well. Hiirikoski and fällman have been mainstays on this blueline since the beginning of time, but both are coming back from significant injuries and missing time. Nadia mattivi will look to build on her great rookie year campaign where she won defender of the year. Charli kettyle is the newcomer in the defense group from the ncaa who will be expected to step up big especially when it comes to offensive production on the blue line

-Sara grahn will be back alongside lovisa lundeström, a promising prospect making her fill season senior team debut

-on paper it looks like the weakest Luleå roster in a hot second, but that’s still 1) a really good roster that can compete for first 2) luleå is well run enough that if Charlie kettyle puts up a thirty point season I’d just be like yeah I guess that’s happening

MoDo:

-some young Swedish national team stars will lead this team in Ebba Hedqvist (who you may remember from her five goal performance at worlds) and Mira hallin. Fellow national team player Wilma sundin will compliment them, alongside newly acquired Justine Reyes, who is returning to the league after previously being a goal per game player here

-a lot of good young or newly acquired players too. They got vendula přibylová who’s been a solid third line contributor in the league for years, prospects moa Johanesson and lovisa engström, and a trio of ncaa graduates in Alyssa McLeod, Sarah Marchand, and Neena brick

-defense will be led by Ebba berglund and linnéa andersson, followed by veterans Mariam el-mahmadi and Courtney vorster, and newcomers Aoi Shiga of the Japanese national team and Sydney pederson from the ncaa

-in goal is a combination of Lucy Morgan, lovisa persson, and ebba lindström, which has the most questions as none have spent significant time in the ncaa, but Morgan feels like a fairly safe bet

-overall I lowkey love this roster, not much I can’t see working and they will compete for first

SDE

-this is like the ultimate chaos team to me they always doing something kinda fun but weird

-in net is another solid tandem in kassidy sauvé, who’s great so long as she’s healthy and one of my favorite players in the world, and Emma söderberg

-the top three defense for this team has a high ceiling in the forever underrated Kayleigh hamers, dominika lásková, and Josefine Holmgren. Alva johnsson is coming over from Frölunda to round out a top four

-Netherlands hockey legend Julie zwartheod, one of the longest tenured players, is back alongside mathea fischer and Lisa Johansson for a veteran core forward group. Gabby Jones is also back after a solid season in their middle six. They’ve added Tereza pištěková, Gabrielle David, and Samantha Cogan in free agency as well who should at least shore up the secondary scoring, if not contribute more

-this is my biggest “they could surprise people” team. This roster lowkey rules

Skellefteå

-they were promoted to the Sdhl last year and were doing solid until they broke a rule about dressing too many international players and got docked like ten points. still they made the playoffs and had a nice first year

-another team built from the net out that has a high floor but lower ceiling. In net is Camryn drever, who had a FANTASTIC rookie year.

-biggest acquisition was top defender lotti odnoga, who will join aino karppinen, malou Bergenn and sini karjalainen on defense. Have a few young defense prospects as well that could make an impact

-up front they’re led by danish star nicoline Jensen, ida kouppla, and Laura lerchrová. Nikita bergmann is one of their top prospects they committed to who’s starting to blossom on the senior level, and they acquired Millie rose sirum on the offseason from ncaa. This team lowkey has a lot of non-Swedish nordics

-they’re going to struggle to score, but could finish mid table especially if sirum has a immediate impact

[pwhlottawa]

SDHL info ahead of Games 1

Hello and welcome to my cleaned-up attempt to provide some starter info on the Swedish Women's Hockey League!

This post is being written for an audience of English-speaking people in the Eastern through Pacific time zones with the assumption that you don't know Swedish. This is also assuming you have pre-existing hockey knowledge and likely watch the PWHL.

Topics I will be going over in this post:

What is the SDHL, why should I watch it, and where can it be watched?

What are the teams?

What is it like watching the league as an English, non-Swedish speaker in the EST through PST time zones?

What's some basic vocab and pronounciation so I can more easily follow what's happening, in terms of important words the announcers/commentators might say, words that might appear on the screen, or stats?

Anything else about the league?

I hope that whoever you are, you will find this helpful, and have fun watching a great hockey league!

(I would also like to take a moment to link you all to @grantmentis's post here from early 2024 with information about multiple leagues outside North America. My web search returned it when I was trying to get an idea of the average salary situation.)

1. What is the SDHL, why should I watch it, and where can it be watched?

The SDHL — the Svenska Spel Damhockeyligan, or Swedish Women's Hockey League — is the top tier women's league in Sweden, and one of the best women's leagues in the world. It's great hockey with a large spread of international talent. They were the first women's league to allow bodychecking, beginning in the 22-23 season. And very appealingly, the season begins something like two months before the PWHL, giving you lots of fantastic hockey to watch before the P-dub has even released their schedule (Judge_Judy_tapping_wrist.gif).

This year the league will be streaming on youtube, with assurances from the SDHL's Communications and Social Media person Lina Björkman that in line with the vast majority of sports teams and leagues that stream on YT, the SDHL's game streams will remain publicly available after they have finished (I emailed to make sure. Shout out to Lina for the prompt and lovely response).

Link to the SDHL youtube page.

2. What are the teams?

(Links to their rosters on the SDHL website and the youtube playlists for each team where each match stream will be added are included.)

There are 10 teams in the SDHL:

Brynäs IF (roster) (playlist)

Djurgården Hockey (roster) (playlist)

Frölunda HC (roster) (playlist)

Färjestad BK (roster) (playlist)

HV71 (roster) (playlist)

Linköping HC (roster) (playlist)

Luleå Hockey/MSSK (roster) (playlist)

MoDo Hockey (roster) (playlist)

SDE Hockey (roster) (playlist)

Skellefteå AIK (roster) (playlist)

Note that SDHL uses promotion and relegation with the NDHL (Nationella Damhockeyligan/National Women's Hockey League, the 2nd tier Swedish league), so up to two teams can change at the end of every season when the bottom two teams in the league's standings have to each win a best-of-three match-up with the NDHL's top two teams. Most recently, Färjestad was promoted for the 25-26 season, Skellefteå was promoted for the 24-25 season, and Frölunda was promoted for the 23-24 season.

3. What is it like watching the league as an English, non-Swedish speaker in the EST through PST time zones?

Gonna try to slim down the contents of this post.

Everyone is different, but it's very likely you will find the ads on the uniforms distracting for a few minutes and then get used to them and stop really noticing them.

Because of time zones, the games will be streaming at times that are inconvenient for many of us on any given day. However, as stated in section 1, the stream replays will be available. Weekday games basically always begin at 12pm EST/9am PST or 1pm EST/10am PST. Weekend games can vary more. I've generally seen start times anywhere from 6am EST/3am PST to 10am EST/7am PST.

The commentary, on-screen text, and most player interviews will be in Swedish. Some player interviews will be in English if the player being interviewed is more comfortable in English than Swedish. A lot of hockey vocabulary is English loan words, so between that and the commentators saying player names and sounding excited when something might be happening, you'll understand more than you might think, especially since you've watched hockey before.

The games allow bodychecking without open ice hits. There are no commercial breaks in the middle of a period, only during intermission. At the end of every period, one player from each team will be interviewed. Before the game and during intermissions there will often be things like coaching staff interviews and other discussion.

European sports crowds are often cheering and yelling and chanting the whole game. WoHo doesn't always draw the biggest crowds (because people have bad taste or don't know they exist), and the size of the crowd will vary a lot from team to team, so the noise of the crowd will also vary.

4. What's some basic vocab and pronounciation so I can more easily follow what's happening, in terms of important words the announcers/commentators might say, words that might appear on the screen, or stats?

The team and player names are not always pronounced in Swedish how they appear to our English-reading eyes, because some of their letters make different sounds. Any chance you have to listen to a moment or video where a player, especially a Swedish player, is being introduced or introducing herself, I suggest paying close attention so you know what sounds to listen for when listening to the commentary.

They say "SDHL" something like "Es Dee Ho El."

Brynäs, Frölunda, Luleå, MoDo, and SDE in Swedish are pronounced relatively close to how you'd read them as an English speaker. For the ones with at least one notable sound difference:

Djurgården sounds like "yurgarden"

Färjestad sounds like "faryestad"

HV71 sounds like "ho-vee hootyet"

Linköping sounds like "linchoping"

Skellefteå sounds like "helleftea"

Apologies to any Swedes around who read that written interpretation of sounds and hated it.

Here's a link to an SDHL video from a couple days ago where within the first couple minutes they introduce one player from each team, saying the player's name and the team name.

And here's some vocab that I'm getting from the SDHL website:

Forwards: Forwards Defense: Backar Goaltenders: Målvakter

The stat abbreviations are actually English-friendly (GP, G, A, TP (total points), W, L, T, OTW, OTL, etc), but here's some full words:

Goals: Mål Assists: Målgivande passningar Points: Poäng Penalty minutes: Utvisningsminuter Save percentage: Räddningsprocent Wins: Vinster Ties: Oavgjorda matcher Losses: Förluster Power play: Powerplay Penalty kill: Boxplay Games played: Spelade matcher

There's a lot more of course, but there's some basics. And even from those you can see some of the loan words in use. (I love boxplay personally. They sure are playing while a teammate is in a box.)

5. Anything else about the league?

The SDHL established a Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2020, which appears to have last been updated in 2022. An absolute basic overview of it is here, and the PDF CBA it links to is here, though it's of course in Swedish.

There's no salary cap, salary is a mystery, and it depends on which team the athlete plays for. There's no trades, just establishing and ending of contracts, and the CBA states that the players need to be notified within a week of the end of their season if the team isn't planning on extending their contract. This article from late 2017 says (quoting translated text), "the average monthly salary for a female top player in a top team in SDHL is 4 000 SEK a month." According to this article, the average SDHL salary as of late 2020 was 5500 SEK. (Exchange rate varies of course, but you can currently assume that $1 USD is around 10 kronor. Looks like a Canadian dollar is around 7 kronor right now.) We can almost certainly assume that many salaries have gone up over time, and I remember reading a player saying that she had noticed over time that fewer athletes had to have second jobs, though plenty definitely still do, and likely some still don't get paid, especially on the teams with the least money to throw around.

I was going to actually look up all the former PWHL players and talk about them here, plus other notable players, but I want to post this not too extremely late in the day, and it's already 7:30pm on the west coast. I can work on that later, and I do plan to.

Anyway, feel free to reach out with any questions, corrections, or comments. There is now a (brand new and very empty) SDHL fan community you can join. Someone suggested that the delayed game liveblogs be tagged #sdhl rewind lb. There will also be people watching the various games live, and liveblog posts tagged #sdhl lb. Here are the links to the Day 1 livestreams for September 5th:

Luleå & Frölunda Brynäs & Linköping MoDo & Färjestad SDE & Djurgården Skellefteå & HV71

I hope this has been helpful and comprehensible. As I said in another post,

You are going to watch the SDHL.

Happy Games 1 Eve, everyone!!!

[pwhlottawa]

WE GOT REPLICA JERSEYS FOR ALL LET'S GOOO

[pwhlottawa]

hockey book rec: call me indian by Fred Sasakamoose

what I liked about this book is that it took the part of his life that people would consider "the story" (his brief time in the NHL and the professional hockey he played before and after) and pulled out. hockey was a big part of his story, but he had an entire life that shaped his time as a professional hockey player, and he had an entire life after.

Fred Sasakamoose was the first Indigenous player in the NHL with treaty status, which they specify because other Indigenous players came before but--like George Armstrong, who was Algonquin and Ashinaabe--lost that legal status because the Indian Act intentionally narrowed who was legally recognized. (you can read more about him in his granddaughter's thesis "Life of a Half and Half: A grandfather and Granddaughter's Sharing of Story," which is available online.)

a large portion of the book is about his years in residential school and how being forcibly removed from his family and home shaped the rest of his life & what it meant for him to be a hockey player and a husband and a father. in particular, I was interested in the connections he made to his removal and the incompatibility of professional hockey (e.g. lack of agency in where you go, having to be away from your peoples and lands).

he went on to serve as a band councilor and later as Chief of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation and spent much of his later life developing sports programs for Indigenous youth, including helping to found the Northern Indian Hockey League. the National Championship of Canada for Indigenous teams is named after him.

[pwhlottawa]

there are players i keep forgetting are on vancouver now... brooke mcquigge just occurred to me.

[pwhlottawa]

i want daniela pejšová to torch the league next year...

[pwhlottawa]

there are players i keep forgetting are on vancouver now... brooke mcquigge just occurred to me.

[pwhlottawa]

just occurred to me that we might get bobby jo love officiating games out west again. yippee!

[pwhlottawa]

the way being a taylor swift fan has kind of become metabolized as this inherent trait of womanhood is very bizarre

[pwhlottawa]

you know a women's sport has finally attained mainstream popularity when it becomes infinitely easier to illegally stream online

[pwhlottawa]

Hi everyone!

Because of your interest in my poll for a weekly PWHL off season arts and craft night and @pwhl-official knocking on my door we’ve made a discord and a tumblr community!

Please join us and share with us at your comfort level.

Whatever you may think of as an art or craft or something you are fiddling around with counts and I want to hear about it.

Given my current availability with my guilds and social calendar, I plan for the crafting circle to take place on Wednesdays or Thursdays every week with an open time slot to allow for different time zones. But everything is up for discussion and I would love to have you even if you can’t make it to the circles.

Ya’ll are amazing.

[pwhlottawa]

just in toronto and a noble moot i met there looks exactly like a guy version of gwyneth philips... i was dying to tell him the whole time....

[pwhlottawa]

Big ol' Post About the Women's World Para Ice Hockey Championships!

Women's World Para Ice Hockey Championships standings as of today! No games tomorrow, so the semifinals will be airing on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday. The tournament is fully staffed by volunteers (including an all-women ref team!) and the broadcasts listed here all of the commentating done in English.

Schedule and YouTube Links:

Saturday @6:30am EST: Team World vs. Team Australia

Saturday @10:00am EST: Canada vs Norway

Saturday @1:30pm EST: USA vs Great Britain

Sunday @9:30am EST: Bronze medal game! Looking like it's gonna be Great Britain vs Norway.

Sunday @1:00pm EST: Gold medal game! Looking like it's gonna be the classic USA vs Canada :)

Other Links n' Stuff:

The World Para Ice Hockey Page on paralympic.org, has information about the inaugural 6 teams such as schedules, news articles, rosters, and players to watch out for.

Link to the Paralympic Games Youtube Live page if you wanna check what times the games are in ur own timezone!

Team Info and Rosters:

Team Australia is a brand-new national team in the para ice hockey league! Goaltender Erika Gosney has been Australia's break-out star with some crazy saves! It's one of the smaller teams, so they're constantly cycling through players throughout the game

Team Canada is pretty well-established in the league (although they are in no way affiliated with Hockey Canada) and they're one of the larger teams alongside Team World and Team USA. Their second line is definitely one to watch out for, the combination of speed between Tousignant and Darnley, making it easy for them to cycle the puck and get shots on net

Team Great Britain is another smaller and relatively newer team, although GB is a very high-contact team, I think they're racked up the most penalties so far lol. Their first line features forward Kristy Van Der Poll and defender Shannon Couch, both very strong skaters and stickhandlers

Team Norway is also brand-new as of this tournament! A few players for Norway graduated from Team World before their own team got started - defender Lena Schroeder (notice how they only have 2 defenders??) is out on the ice and on top of the puck literally constantly, racking up a hat trick within the first period in their game against Australia

By all accounts, Team USA is the one to beat! Backed by USA Hockey, the para Ice Hockey league in the US is the most developed in the world - forwards Kelsey DiClaudio and Lera Doederlein have really made a name for themselves, DiClaudio racking up like 6 goals in the last 2 games

Team World is made up of players whose home countries don't (yet) have a full team! Despite having only started playing para ice hockey this year, defender Akari Fukunishi is an absolute menace on the ice - she and her d-pairing, Soyoun Kim, are really good at supporting their goalie and also taking those breakaway and shooting opportunities when they arise

[pwhlottawa]

You can watch the games live here or you can watch the recorded livestreams later - they even update the commentator's subtitles!