Sports
The art of hitting in women’s hockey: How are PWHL players adapting to a more physical game?
The Professional Women’s Hockey League, hoping to educate players on the art of taking a hit, brought in a big name.
Ex-NHL player Ryan Getzlaf was one of his generation’s best combinations of skill and physicality. He was an elite playmaking center — who won a Stanley Cup and two Olympic gold medals — and a punishing 6-foot-3, 220-pound presence.
The former Anaheim Ducks captain now works in the NHL’s department of player safety, which hands out suspensions or fines for on-ice incidents in the league. It was in that capacity that he spoke to PWHL players during the league’s November preseason camps.
Since the launch of the PWHL in January, women’s hockey has become more physical than ever before. And while the increased contact has largely been celebrated — by both players and fans — there have been some concerns about injuries and ambiguity about how to interpret the PWHL’s rulebook. Getzlaf’s goal was to teach players how to better protect themselves on the ice.
“Through no fault of their own, a lot of them never played contact hockey before, so they’re learning a whole new set of rules and a whole new style of play,” Getzlaf told The Athletic. “(The league) saw the benefit for me to go in and talk about spacing on the ice, how to use your body properly along the boards (when) defending against contact, as opposed to putting yourself in some tough spots.”
Over 1,157 NHL games, Ryan Getzlaf was no stranger to making and taking hits. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Women’s hockey has been played the same way for decades. But now athletes are having to adjust to a new style of play once they hit the professional ranks. Navigating that change is going to take time for many players, league officials and executives.
“It’s unprecedented to have your first professional game be the first time you’re allowed to be physical,” said Toronto Sceptres coach Troy Ryan. “You’re going from 0 to 100.”
Physicality has been a hot topic in women’s hockey for years, especially among players.
In April 2023, The Athletic conducted an anonymous poll in which the majority of players said that if they could change one rule in women’s hockey, it would be to allow more contact.
According to the International Ice Hockey Federation rulebook, “bodychecking” in women’s hockey is allowed when there is a clear intent to play the puck. What that typically meant in practice, however, was players being penalized for making contact. That has made women’s hockey conspicuously different from the NHL, where hitting — and fighting — is very much a part of the game.
Women’s hockey players have long believed they should be able to get away with more contact, particularly at the net front and along the boards — not so much in open ice, where hits get more dangerous.
Before the PWHL launched, league leaders were deciding what PWHL games should look like; making the games more physical was an easy change.
“The players want this,” said Jayna Hefford, the PWHL’s senior vice president of hockey operations, who played 17 years for the Canadian women’s national team. “We think it’s a great brand of hockey. (The players) are strong, they’re fast, they can play this way.”
The PWHL’s initial rules around bodychecking were written similar to the IIHF’s — where gaining possession of the puck was a requirement to make contact — but it was clear early on that the interpretation of the rules and the way games were officiated was going to be different. There were more hits on the boards, and more contact was allowed in puck battles.
There were injuries last season, but according to Hefford, the number of injuries did not hit an alarming level. If at any point the increased physicality was creating more injuries, the league’s chief medical officer, Tina Atkinson, was instructed to flag her concerns with hockey operations. Over a number of check-ins, Hefford said that was never the case.
But there was inconsistency in how games were called last season. And for many players, the increase in contact was a first in their career.
Some players grew up playing boys hockey, where bodychecking is introduced at the under-14 level. Those players would have learned how to absorb contact, or how to throw a good hit — albeit years ago, especially for veteran players. Bodychecking has never been permitted in youth girls hockey, which means those skills are not typically taught.
“We’re figuring it out as players,” said Toronto defender Renata Fast. “There’s going to be bad hits because players are learning how to play physically. Not only are you learning how to take a hit, you’re learning how to give it and there’s going to be instances of doing it at the wrong time.
“I think for our league it’s been a work in progress.”
Defenders like the Sceptres’ Renata Fast can now add physicality to their arsenal, but it’s a learning process. (Troy Parla / Getty Images)
That work has taken on a few different forms.
Before the start of the 2024-25 season, the PWHL announced several rule clarifications regarding bodychecking.
The rulebook now more clearly states that bodychecking is permitted when players are moving in the same direction and that hitting an opponent straight on — with “opposite-directional force” — is prohibited. The league also introduced strict guidelines around head contact; any illegal checks to the head will result in a major penalty and a game misconduct, pending a video review.
Hefford said the league sent out multiple educational videos to officials, players and team staff on things like boarding (which many around the league found to be inconsistently penalized last season), hits to the head and bodychecking, with examples on what is permitted and what should be penalized heading into the season.
“We’re all adapting to this new standard,” said Hefford. “After season one, we felt the need to really try to clarify where those lines are.”
Getzlaf was brought in to help players better protect themselves on the ice for the times when an opponent might cross those very lines the league is trying to make less blurred. He hosted two short video sessions in Toronto and Montreal, where the league’s six teams were split up for preseason.
The main areas of concern Getzlaf identified in clips was player awareness and positioning. With no contact in women’s hockey for so long, players were accustomed to turning their backs to opponents along the walls to protect the puck. Now, that could put a player in a vulnerable position.
“If somebody is coming to make a hit and you turn your back at the last second, you’re going into the boards head-first,” Getzlaf explained. “Those are certain things we have to get out of the game.”
Getzlaf also told players he’d like to see them stop either five feet from the boards, or right up against them.
“When you’re standing at three feet, you can go in pretty hard on your head,” he said. “If you get closer to the boards, your shoulders and the boards can absorb some of the hit and it allows you to be safer.”
The importance of being more aware of their surroundings on the ice — and where contact might be coming from — was perhaps the biggest takeaway for players.
“It was interesting to have someone with an outside perspective and I totally agree with it,” said Minnesota forward Taylor Heise. “In this league (players sometimes) get away with being complacently not aware of what’s going on. Whereas in the NHL, your life is at stake at that point. You’re not going to turn and not know where you’re going because you’re going to get your ass laid out.”
Player awareness on the ice was a big takeaway for the Minnesota Frost’s Taylor Heise. (Michael Chisholm / Getty Images)
Some teams had already taken the onus on themselves to help teach players how to safely get hit. The Ottawa Charge brought in former NHL defender Marc Methot to run a hitting clinic ahead of the inaugural season. Minnesota coach Ken Klee, who played 934 games in the NHL, instructed players himself.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Klee said. “I’m more concerned with can we absorb checks, can we get out of the way, can we protect ourselves, rather than us being the big bad (Philadelphia) Flyers.”
And while protecting yourself is important, Klee has also emphasized to players the lines that should not be crossed, particularly when it comes to dangerous boarding penalties, which are called when a player hits an opponent violently into the boards.
“If you see numbers (on the back of their jersey) you have to let up,” he said. “If you see numbers, you can’t go finish them and say it’s on her because she didn’t look.”
At a recent Toronto Sceptres practice, Ryan spent most of the skate working with players on angling while on the defensive side of the puck. Having a good angle, he said, is critical for proper defensive positioning, but it also allows for safer contact versus going straight at an opponent.
“I want physicality. I think it’s a big part of the game, but I don’t want it to be reckless,” he said. “It’s our job to make as many adjustments as we can to get athletes ready for physical play – it’s no different than helping an athlete get ready for our power play or penalty kill.”
With more contact looming, many players took a different approach to training in the summer to prepare for the 2024-25 season.
Around 20 PWHL players spent the summer at Shield Athletics — a facility in Burlington, Ont., 35 miles from downtown Toronto — with a more holistic training plan that included rehab, mobility, strength training and on-ice sessions.
“Last year opened a lot of players’ and trainers’ eyes into all those little rehab exercises that needed to be implemented in our programming,” said Fast.
At Shield, players spent several weeks working on their mobility and any nagging injuries or weaknesses in their body before moving onto any heavy lifting.
“If you’re not dealing with these minor weaknesses, when there’s contact, all of a sudden they catch up to you and they catch up to you very fast,” said Shield founder Brandon Coccimiglio, who worked with the PWHL players.
In the gym, players focused on building strength more than they’d done in previous offseasons, especially in their upper body. On the ice, Coccimiglio ran drills that simulated the kind of in-game contact situations players are most likely to be in, like escaping pressure while carrying the puck or taking a hit and making a pass.
“When you build that confidence in that body with that athlete,” Coccimiglio said, “all of a sudden they’re going into the boards and it’s not even fazing them.”
Despite all the adjustments, there have already been controversial hits this season.
Fast was boarded hard in Toronto’s first game of the season. Sarah Fillier, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, was needlessly hit into New York’s open bench door in a game against Boston. Last week, Minnesota defender Maggie Flaherty was suspended for two games after what the league’s player safety committee called an “unsafe and dangerous” hit on Boston forward Alina Müller.
Flaherty was initially given a major penalty and game misconduct for an illegal hit to the head, which was downgraded to a minor after a video review. The officials believed Müller’s own stick hit her in the head, not Flaherty.
But the league still handed down a suspension for multiple infractions: a north-south hit with no intent to play the puck, an extended elbow and avoidable head contact.
“We just went over this with players,” said Hefford, who is on the player safety committee. “All of those things cannot be part of the game. And we wanted to make sure we didn’t allow any sort of gray area.”
The hope for many stakeholders in the women’s game is that some form of body contact is introduced at lower levels so players are more prepared as they move up the ranks and eventually get to professional hockey. Nobody wants dangerous bodychecks in girls youth hockey. Instead, the focus would be on teaching players how to use their body safely and how to defend against contact. That way, when they get to the PWHL, it’s a more seamless transition into contact hockey.
“I think it has to be addressed at younger ages,” said Coccimiglio, who said he’s been working with some youth female hockey players on controlled contact scenarios. “The game is getting more physical and they have to be prepared for that.”
While it’s still a work in progress, most players ultimately see this increased physicality as a good thing for the game.
“It allows for the game to be played at a higher level,” said Fast. “It brings more fan engagement. There’s a lot of benefits to it.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Chris Young / The Canadian Press via AP, Bailey Hillesheim Icon Sportswire via Getty)
Sports
JD Vance confirms Daniel Penny will attend Army-Navy game after acquittal in subway chokehold trial
Vice President-elect JD Vance confirmed Friday that Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran found not guilty in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, has officially accepted his invitation to be his guest at the annual Army-Navy game in Landover, Maryland.
NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman first reported that Penny had been invited early Friday morning, adding that he would join President-elect Donald Trump in his suite at Northwest Stadium, the home of the Washington Commanders.
Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) speaks during a campaign rally at the Elite Jet at Contact Aviation facility on October 24, 2024, in Waterford, Michigan. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Vance responded on social media confirming Penny’s attendance.
“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote in a post on X.
“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”
Penny, 26, was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the May 2023 subway chokehold death of Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia who had barged onto the train shouting death threats while high on a type of synthetic marijuana known as K2.
Daniel Penny arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court, Friday, November 22, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
DANIEL PENNY FOUND NOT GUILTY IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL
Last week, jurors couldn’t reach a decision on the second-degree manslaughter charge. Prosecutors moved to dismiss it, and the judge allowed the jurors to deliberate on the second charge alone, and they found Penny not guilty on Monday.
Penny is expected to join Trump and Vance at the 125th meeting of the Black Knights and Midshipmen. Sources told Fox News Digital last week that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will also be present at the game on Saturday.
Army quarterback Bryson Daily (13) runs with the ball during the first half of the American Athletic Conference championship NCAA college football game against Tulane Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, in West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
This season has been a banner year for both football programs, adding buzz to the annual rivalry match. The teams have a combined 19 wins this year and with victories over Air Force, the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy will be awarded to the winner of Saturday’s game.
This will also mark Trump’s fifth time attending the Army-Navy game. He first attended in 2016 and appeared three times during his first administration.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, CB Cotton, Grace Taggart, Paul Steinhauser and Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Sports
Have Padres, Diamondbacks given up trying to keep pace with Dodgers? They've stood pat so far
Leaving the Major League Baseball winter meetings empty-handed can feel worse than it actually is. What it’s not is the equivalent of waking up on Christmas morning to find coal in your stocking and no gifts under the tree.
Teams that sign free agents or make blockbuster trades during the few days everyone of importance in the MLB universe congregates under one luxury hotel roof get out-sized applause for their moves. Reporters dutifully type up the winners and losers on their flights home.
So, yes, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks appear to be scuffling at the moment. Inertia isn’t tolerated by fan bases, especially when their division competitors — the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants — are signing big names and holding splashy press conferences.
But the winter meetings are a snapshot, not a jury trial. Spring training begins in two months and opening day is nearly four months away. Plenty of free agents remain available — 197 at last count. Names big and small dangle as trade bait.
With that caveat, let’s explore why the Padres and Diamondbacks have stood pat.
In the Padres’ case, their unbridled spending under the late owner Peter Seidler seems to have hit its limit.
They were onlookers during the Juan Soto sweepstakes, with only memories of him posting in all 162 games in brown and gold in 2023 to tease them. They seem to be having buyer’s remorse at signing infielder Xander Boegarts to an 11-year, $280-million deal that runs through 2033.
So they mostly sat through the meetings at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas reportedly fielding offers for starter Dylan Cease and three-time batting champion Luis Arráez — both entering their final year of arbitration before becoming free agents — while making it clear to suitors that Boegarts is available.
Cease, especially, could fetch solid prospects in return, a startling turnabout for the Padres, who in recent years have been the ones shoveling promising minor leaguers from their fertile farm system to others in exchange for win-now veterans. It was the only way to keep up with, and occasionally surpass, the Dodgers.
“Every year, you always have a budget that you’ve got to be in line with,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller told reporters at the winter meetings. “This year, really no different from that standpoint. We try to be open-minded to certain players and player-specific moves that are out there — that if they line up we do have some flexibility.
“Even though we haven’t lined up on anything from a trade or free-agent standpoint, it’s been super active. Way further ahead from a knowledge standpoint today than we were when we got here.”
That’s one way to paint a grin on the decision to swallow hard and sit. The shift in philosophy began last year when the Padres trimmed nearly $100 million off their payroll yet won 11 more games than in 2023 and gamely maintained their rivalry with the Chavez Ravine behemoth, falling a victory short in the National League Division Series.
Yet now they must try to maintain that competitive stance while reconciling that this offseason the Dodgers already added starter Blake Snell, who won the NL Cy Young Award in 2023 in a Padres uniform.
“We’re not naive that there are certain organizations that have just more competitive advantages,” Padres manager Mike Shildt told reporters. “That’s no state secret, right? We live that every day. … The reality from my seat, our clubhouse seat, our team seat is, it’s still a game that requires you to play right, compete a certain way, play the game a certain way.”
The Diamondbacks also tell themselves they play in a way that enables them to overachieve. They are one year removed from using the Dodgers as a springboard to the World Series, a remarkable achievement for a team that won only 84 regular-season games. Last season they increased that total to 89 and led the majors in runs scored yet didn’t make the playoffs.
A primary objective isn’t to add, but to subtract the one-year, $22.5-million contract of left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery, who went from postseason hero with the Texas Rangers in 2023 to a 6.38 earned-run average albatross with the Diamondbacks in 2024.
It would seem Arizona would need to eat much of the contract, but the market for starting pitching seems to climb with every free-agent signing: Snell (five years, $182 million), Max Fried (eight years, $218 million), Nathan Eovaldi (three years, $75 million).
Maybe the Diamondbacks can unload Montgomery and replace the offense lost by departing free agents Christian Walker, Joc Pederson and Randal Grichuk. They could trade from their outfield depth, moving either Alek Thomas and Jake McCarthy, both of whom are under team control through 2028.
Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen sounded a lot like Preller when assessing the winter meetings with reporters.
“A lot of meetings, didn’t really get much done,” he said. “But there’s been progress made in some conversations in some areas, so we’ll see what happens. Wasn’t necessarily expecting anything to happen here. We’ll carry those conversations forward.”
Besides staring at the backs of the Dodgers, the Padres and Diamondbacks must peek over their shoulders at the Giants, whose stunning signing of shortstop Willy Adames is an indication that new president of baseball operations Buster Posey means business.
The Dodgers, honestly, didn’t do much during the meetings besides accepting congratulations for their World Series championship. But they accomplished plenty out of the gate this offseason, signing veteran outfielder Michael Conforto, giving the versatile Tommy Edman a five-year extension and re-signing high-leverage reliever Blake Treinen in addition to bringing in Snell.
And more is expected of Andrew Friedman, Brandon Gomes and the rest of the Dodgers’ brass. Whether that holds true for the two teams that stymied them recently enough that they can still feel the sting is undetermined.
In a week when he lamented a bias against United States men’s national team players in Europe, Weston McKennie did what he does best.
In adversity, the midfielder stood up to be counted and proved that you write him and his USMNT team-mates off at your peril.
Left on the bench, alongside compatriot Tim Weah, for their Italian club Juventus as they hosted Manchester City, the pair combined as second-half substitutes to help secure a statement win against Pep Guardiola’s side.
Only six minutes after their introduction to the contest, McKennie started a move by finding Weah and then burst into the box, before the latter sent a perfect cross to the back post for the Texan to volley spectacularly past Ederson.
U.S. version:
Scored in Torino, made in America! 🇮🇹🤝🇺🇸
Juve’s #USMNT duo combine for a goal to remember as Tim Weah sets up Weston McKennie 🪄 pic.twitter.com/ZaZsL3u7jY
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) December 11, 2024
UK version:
Juventus double their lead over Man City 😳
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/okSptReD23
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) December 11, 2024
It made the score 2-0 against the reigning Premier League champions and created a slice of men’s Champions League history in the process.
It was the first time an American has assisted another American for a goal in Europe’s premier club competition. “There was a lovely, lazy confidence about the way Timothy Weah tossed it into the path of his fellow countryman,” said commentator Clive Tyldesley on Paramount +.
“I was falling over,” McKennie said post-match. “Nah, I’m just playing. We’ve seen it before, I did it also against Barcelona.”
McKennie and Weah are bringing their USMNT bond to club level (Valerio Pennicino / Getty Images)
There was a timely resonance to the moment, especially for McKennie, who spoke of his frustration at the perceived prejudice against American players in excerpts from a new Paramount + documentary about Christian Pulisic.
“There is definitely a bias,” said McKennie, who has had to prove himself to two different managers in the last two summers after appearing to be surplus to requirements in Turin. “I go through it most of the time when I’m at Juventus. Every year somehow I’m on the out and ready to be discarded, and every summer I’m like a new player coming in looking to make a name for myself.”
McKennie has only started three Champions League games out of a possible six for Juventus, and on Wednesday found himself initially benched with Weah, having recently recovered from muscle issues that had limited his involvement.
After the final whistle Juventus’ X account published a photograph of the pair with the caption ‘American connection’ and a stars and stripes emoji. The win moved Thiago Motta’s side up to 14th in the Champions League table and boosted their chances of automatic qualification for the last 16 of the tournament, with two fixtures of the initial league phase to go.
American connection 🇺🇸🔗#JuveManCity #UCL pic.twitter.com/kH18CKbUia
— JuventusFC 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@juventusfcen) December 11, 2024
It was a Champions League night which began inauspiciously for the Americans in Europe — with Christian Pulisic injured for Milan, striker Folarin Balogun sidelined for Monaco and McKennie and Weah on the bench. The previous evening, in-form striker Ricardo Pepi started on the bench as PSV lost to Brest, while Malik Tillman had a tough night in the same game.
Gio Reyna bucked that trend though, given his first start of the season in any competition for Borussia Dortmund in their home meeting with Barcelona.
Reyna started in midfield against the Catalan giants, a major upturn on his recent minimal game time from the bench in the Bundesliga, where his campaign to date has been ruined by groin problems.
A positive step for Gio Reyna despite Dortmund’s defeat to Barcelona (Photo by Lars Baron / Getty Images)
But the 22-year-old attacking midfielder played 73 minutes of a pulsating 3-2 defeat at Signal Iduna Park, in a sign he is ready to take on a more meaningful role in Nuri Sahin’s team going forward. Against Barcelona, no other Dortmund player made more passes into the final third than Reyna’s six, according to Fotmob.
He was back in the starting XI on the second anniversary of the start of a spectacular feud with former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter that left a sour note on their relationship after the 2022 World Cup.
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Gio Reyna apologized to U.S. teammates over his lack of effort, sources say
At the San Siro, Milan’s USMNT midfielder Yunus Musah was another who started for his team, as the Rossoneri ran out 2-1 winners against Red Star Belgrade.
But the headline grabber came in Turin, where there was a distinctly American touch to Manchester City’s latest struggle, and where the goal of the night might have done a little to ease that supposed stigma.
(Top photo: Valerio Pennicino / Getty Images)
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