Winnipeg ICE and SheIS Team Up for 2022 International Women's Day - Release

Winnipeg, MB – The Winnipeg ICE are proud to announce their partnership with SheIS, a non-profit organization that empowers women in sport at all levels and provides access for young girls to participate in, watch and interact with strong women in sport.

The Winnipeg ICE, in collaboration with SheIS, will be celebrating International Women’s Day on Tuesday March 8th and recognizing women in sport at their game at 7:00pm when the Calgary Hitmen are in town. 

Through this partnership with SheIS, the Winnipeg ICE are excited to showcase how ICE players have been impacted by influential women in their lives. We understand the challenges that many women in sport have faced throughout their lives and we want to be a voice of change. We all have a role to play and a commitment to increase the visibility of women in sport both for those who play and those behind the scenes.

The ICE and SheIS are encouraging fans to share stories about influential women in their lives on social media. Be sure to tag SheIS (@TeamSheIS) and the Winnipeg ICE! 

“I am proud of the partnership between the ICE and SheIS.” said Erin Petreny, Sales & Game Day Manager with the Winnipeg ICE “Being a woman in sport can have its challenges. Through this partnership we are able to highlight the importance of these conversations not only from women but also from men. By standing up and voicing their support for women in sport, our players are creating a lane for women to gain visibility that male athletes automatically receive.” 

We are excited to see where this partnership goes and how we can continue to create space for women in sport on an ongoing basis.

AMBASSADOR FEATURE: Jillian Dempsey

by: Robert Brent

As Jillian Dempsey was growing up in Winthrop, Massachusetts, there was no major women’s professional hockey league to aspire to play in; Now, she’s the most decorated player in the history of the Premier Hockey Federation.

The PHF is entering their first season under the new name, previously playing under the banner of the National Women’s Hockey League, and will mark the league’s seventh season overall. Dempsey has been a mainstay, playing for the Boston Pride since their inception. In that time, the Massachusetts native has racked up league records, including setting the high watermark for goals, assists, games played and points.

PHF ALL-TIME GOAL SCORERS

1. Jillian Dempsey 49

2. Madison Packer 42

3. Allie Thunstrom 30

4-T. Brianna Decker 28

4-T. McKenna Brand 28

More than just individual accomplishments, Dempsey has helped foster a tradition of winning with the Pride as well, captaining the team to a championship in 2021, with the championship series being featured on the NBC Sports Network. In talking to SheIS, Dempsey discussed winning the championship in her hometown;

"I'm incredibly lucky to have played the entirety of my hockey career at home. There's something different about representing where we come from. I'm very passionate about where I come from and the culture we have - the drive for excellence we have. Bringing banners back to this city is something I take tremendous pride in."

Jillian Dempsey and the Boston Pride defeated the Minnesota Whitecaps to capture the 2021 Isobel Cup. (Via: NBC Sports)

Having played in the PHF since their very first season, Dempsey has seen the league undergo a lot of changes. The federation originally started with four teams and has since expanded into Toronto and Minnesota for its fifth and sixth teams respectively. Perhaps even more importantly, the PHF recently signed a deal with ESPN+ to broadcast games on the “worldwide leader of sports” streaming service. Dempsey talked about the importance of the TV deal, saying;

“We’re absolutely thrilled. Getting to have these kinds of platforms to showcase and promote our game is something we’ve been working towards. It increases accessibility, and we’re just excited to get the game out there.”

This deal represents the first time women’s professional hockey will have such a large platform and opportunity to be seen by a wide audience.

The PHF and ESPN+ will bring women’s hockey an unprecedented level of visibility. Dempsey herself didn’t have a professional league to aspire to when she was growing up, instead being inspired by the women’s national teams in the Olympics as well as her hometown Harvard University team, a school she would later go on to play her college hockey for. Because of the work of her hockey heroes before her, Dempsey now has the chance to play on a stage that will inspire future generations, showing them that if they want to play, there is a place to do it.

The Boston Pride forward now hopes to leave the game in a better place than it was when she arrived; much like her predecessors before her, citing players like Angela Ruggerio, Cammi Granato and Julie Chu. Dempsey spoke to us about this goal, saying;

"Every game or interaction with a young fan, whether it be in the autograph line or outside the rink, any coaching opportunity or chance to make a difference. It really puts into perspective how much of an impact we have playing women's professional hockey and growing the game... It's a true privilege to be in this position and have the opportunity to play the game that we love so much while moving it forward for those who come next."

Jillian Dempsey has continued to produce at an elite level for the Boston Pride, registering three points in the team's six games so far. Dempsey's impact is seen past the scoresheet, however, as she describes her style of play as a strong two-way centre that likes to play with a bit of grit while playing responsible defense.

JILLIAN DEMPSEY 2021-22 STATS

Games Played | Goals | Assists | Shots | Plus/Minus

6 | 1 | 2 | 15 | +2

Team SheIS would like to thank Jillian Dempsey for talking with us, as well as for all the work she does pushing the game of women's hockey forward. You can see her and the Boston Pride take the ice on ESPN+ and follow Dempsey on social media on her profiles linked below.

Maddie Hinch Taking On Tokyo

As fans, we often think of athletes as superheroes — capable of amazing feats and withstanding unlimited amounts of pressure and expectations. For British field hockey goalie, Maddie Hinch, these expectations caused her to step away from the game that she had reached the pinnacle of in 2016 when she backstopped Great Britain to a gold medal in Rio. 

Hinch was not just on the team in 2016 but played the hero when the gold-medal game against the Netherlands went to a penalty shootout. Hinch saved all four of the Netherland’s shots and was hailed as one of the primary reasons Great Britain came home with the gold. 

Hinch’s superstardom continued as she continued her run as one of the world’s best goalkeepers, winning the International Field Hockey Federation’s goalkeeper of the year award in 2016, 2017 and 2018. While Hinch was seeming invincible and playing the best field hockey of her career, those expectations began to wear on her.

"I felt like I had to be a superhuman every time I stepped on the pitch and only perfect would work. I've never been perfect. I always let in bad goals leading into the Olympics.” Hinch said in an interview with Team Great Britain’s press, “All that got forgotten because of the medal. They were the demons I was fighting, those highs and lows and it's been tough.”

Hinch would step away from the international team in 2018 as she needed time to work on getting back in the frame of mind to play. While she continued to play professionally, the Great Britain field hockey team was going through a lot of changes. When Hinch returned to international competition in 2019, she found a much different program.

When Hinch stepped into the goal during the 2016 run, she had been a debuting Olympian on an experienced team, now she will be one of just seven returning players from that team tasked with mentoring nine players making their first Olympics appearances. The team also went through a coaching change in 2018. With a young and inexperienced team, Great Britain goes into these Olympics ranked sixth in the world. 

More than the team being different Maddie Hinch will be entering the Olympics as a new person, too. Hinch has a whole new perspective on career and field hockey after missing the game during her time away. 

“I constantly remind myself that the reason I'm there is that I just love stopping hockey balls,” Hinch said about her reinvigorated love for the game. Field hockey had seemed like a constant pressure but is now again a passion. Hinch says this new perspective also makes her appreciate the opportunity to compete at the Olympics once again. 

"Now I value the opportunity of being at the Games so much more. As a youngster, you're constantly ticking boxes and chasing something and you miss the importance of being at an Olympics,” Hinch said, “You never sit back and take it all in. Now, I've been through so much, and I'm just so looking forward to having this opportunity to do it again.”

Check out Ambassador Sami Jo Smalls Podcast with special guest Naya Tappa!


 

Tapper Makes Olympic Debut as One of The Most Decorated Rugby Players in American History

Naya Tapper Taking on Tokyo

One of the most interesting storylines of every Olympics is seeing new athletes take the stage in their Olympic debuts. One such first-time Olympian is the American Rugby Sevens winger; Naya Tapper.

Tapper makes her Olympic debut as one of the most decorated rugby players in American history. In her young career, Tapper has already become the second all-time leading scorer of tries for the American team. She also led the Americans to the silver medal at the 2019 Pan-American Games in Lima. At just 26-years old, the North Carolina native has already made her mark on the sport of rugby.

Tapper didn’t always seem destined for this success, however. In the lead-up to these Olympic Games, Tapper revealed in an interview with WCNC Charlotte that she was cut from the American team in 2016. Her coach saw potential in her, however, and decided to put her back in the academy shortly after that. 

"I'm going to put you in an academy for you to get better," Tapper recalled her coach telling her. "And if you get better, we'll rock and roll with it. And if you don't this will be the end of your career as a rugby player - with the national team at least." 

This proved to be the first setback in Tapper’s rugby career that had just only started when she arrived at the University of North Carolina and decided to try out for the rugby team. Tapper had always been naturally gifted at sports, running track and field in high school, and proved to be just as adept at rugby at UNC-Chapel Hill. This is one of the reasons Tapper says she was shocked when she was cut from the team, but also took the opportunity to take the setback as a challenge to commit even further to the sport. 

“If you take up the challenge, everything is not going to be easy," Tapper said, “I was waking up at 4 a.m. to go train, going back home to sleep and then going to work for 8 hours at Buffalo Wild Wings.” 

From there, Tapper’s rugby career skyrocketed and the winger has developed into one of the most influential players in the game. Tapper is set to be an ambassador for a new league, Premiere Rugby Sevens (PR7s), an organization that will fight for pay equality for men and women rugby players. PR7s will be a barn-storming league that will feature one-day tournaments in select cities in the US with 6 men’s teams and 4 women’s teams. 

From her fight for equal pay to her Olympic debut, Tapper has come a long way from being one of the first cuts to the American rugby team in 2016. Tapper is poised to be one of the most interesting athletes to watch during the Tokyo Olympics.

Check out Ambassador Sami Jo Smalls Podcast with special guest Naya Tappa!

 

Watch this exclusive interview between Naya and rugby fan, Joannah!

Jenna Caira Living Life-Long Dream at 2020 Olympics

SheIS Ambassador Taking on Tokyo

Jenna Caira is a Canadian softball pitcher that will be making her Olympic debut in Tokyo. More importantly, however, Caira will be living out a childhood dream. 

In an interview with CTV leading up to the Olympics, Caira recalled her fourth birthday. At her Birthday party, Caira’s uncle asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her response? Wanting to play softball for Team Canada at the Olympic Games. Now 32-years old, Caira will have that opportunity at the Summer Games. 

Caira’s Olympic dream coming true was never a certainty though. In fact, there are many factors that led to this Summer’s appearance being a long shot. The most obvious of course being the COVID-19 pandemic which put off plans for the Olympic Games in their entirety. After a tumultuous year, that has finally been resolved enough to hold the competition. 

Apart from the Pandemic putting a halt to the Olympic Games, it wasn’t long ago that Caira was done playing the sport herself. The Richmond Hill, Ontario-born pitcher retired from playing softball in 2016 after pitching Canada to the Pan American Games Gold Medal in 2015. In an interview with The Daily Orange (the newspaper for Caira’s alma mater; Syracuse) Caira stated that winning that Gold Medal was the highest achievement she could attain in softball; since the sport was not an Olympic sport at the time. 

“I felt like I truly had done everything I could as a player, as a teammate, as a leader for this program and for my country in terms of softball,” Caira said. “I just felt like I needed to determine who I was outside of softball.”

When the International Olympic Committee announced that softball would be making its return in 2020, however, Caira knew she had to be a part of it. Despite all of the obstacles in her way, Jenna Caira now stands at the precipice of achieving her life-long goal of competing in the Olympic Games. 

Though representing your country at the Olympics is a great honor and the latest achievement in Caira’s career, it is just the latest in a line of accomplishments the pitcher has racked up over her career. Caira played her collegiate softball at Syracuse University where she became the only pitcher in Big East history to accrue 1000 strikeouts. Caira also holds the records for wins, starts, innings, strikeouts and earned run average for a Syracuse pitcher. 

To go with her University accomplishments, Caira also has a strong international record, leading Canada to several impressive finishes in major competitions. The Syracuse product won silver medals at the Pan American Games in 2011 and 2019 to go along with her gold in 2015, as well as won bronze medals at the World Championships in 2010 and 2018. Caira’s signature weapon this whole time has been her change up, which her coach, Todd Martin, calls “the best in the world.” With all her past success, Caira and Team Canada are set up for success at this year’s Olympic Games with a #3 world ranking in softball and medal-ing on their minds.

Caira never really spends much time away from the game as even in her retirement and time away, the pitcher operates Softball camps for children in her native country of Canada. From her passion for the game as well as her continued excellence, Jenna Caira will be achieving a childhood dream when she takes the field for Team Canada at the 2020 Olympic Games. More than that, however, she will serve as an inspiration to aspiring softball players around the world. 


Check out Ambassador Sami Jo Smalls Podcast with special guest Jenna Caira!

 

Watch this exclusive interview between Jenna and SheIS President, Brenda Andress!

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In Sports, Women Will Continue to Lead the Way

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Findings Shared From SheIS Panel on How Leagues Persevered During Pandemic

May 18, 2021 – Some of the most powerful and empowering executives in professional sports recently met as part of the SheIS Collective to exchange ideas, inform and celebrate how women’s sports persevered during the pandemic and will continue to thrive as we begin on the path to the complete return of fans to venues.


The panel discussion was produced by SheIS – the pioneering organization behind the #WomenWorthWatching campaign to drive viewership and attendance – and featured the following executives:


Liz Dalton: Managing Director of Operations and Player Affairs, NWSL

Bethany Donaphin: Head of League Operations, WNBA

Ricki Lasky: Chief Tournament Business Officer, LPGA

Laura Petrucelli: Vice President of Brand, WWE

Stacey Allaster: Chief Executive, USTA (moderator)

Brenda Andress: SheIS President and Founder


Allaster kicked off the discussion by saying of women’s sports, “I know we should be further along than where we are in 2021, but with organizations like SheIS, I am optimistic that the future is infinite.” Here are just some of the highlights of the multi-layered discussion:

THE BIG PICTURE

Petrucelli (WWE): “In sports, women will continue to lead the way. During the pandemic, the momentum around women’s sports has been incredible, and I know it will continue.”


Donaphin (WNBA): “This is a moment where all of us are together because we are energized by what is happening in our respective leagues and sports. There is a storm brewing in terms of where our leagues can go, and it is exciting to be part of it.”


Lasky (LPGA): “I look at this group of accomplished women and what they’ve done in their areas of expertise, and I know we’ve just begun. My ten-year-old daughter Grayson watches Carli Lloyd and Sue Bird and Lexi Thompson compete at the highest levels and she believes if they can do it, she can do it, too.”


Dalton (NWSL): “We’ve come so far, but we cannot relax. We still have so much that we need to accomplish.”


LESSONS LEARNED

Donaphin (WNBA): “One of the things that was remarkable about the WNBA bubble was how safe the players felt in the environment we established for them. That was a resounding piece of feedback we received. And there was something, particularly in the moment we were in, about being able to have our entire league in one place, and particularly from a social justice standpoint, and the priorities the players had around that, in conjunction with actually executing a season.” 


Dalton (NWSL) on the 2020 Challenge Cup in Utah: “We were the first American team sports league back in action during COVID. There was a great weight that we carried, but afterwards we felt a lot of pride in pulling it off. So much of it was the professionalism of our players. They took it seriously. There was pressure. We all felt it. Our medical task force was a tremendous outlet. The other women’s leagues represented on this panel were also a great resource.”


BEST PRACTICES

Lasky (LPGA): “In March of 2019, we launched our new brand positioning, Drive On. As we went from March 2020 into the COVID world and those months we were not playing, it really amplified our ability to tell the stories of our athletes. We were able to provide for the fans who are hungry for content. We produced vignettes of 23 different players on our tour and really poignant, meaningful stories of their journey. That has really taken off for us. We also had Women's Leadership Days. We built that into the packages for our partners because it was very meaningful for them from a D&I perspective. We did the events virtually and were able to share the content with our fans as well. So we took what we usually held in a ballroom for 200-300 people and shared it with many more folks around the world.”


Donaphin (WNBA): “One of the coolest things we did from a fan engagement standpoint was an initiative called Tap to Cheer. It allowed fans to engage with the games and support their favorite teams and we ended up with 140 million taps over the course of the 2020 season. It actually led to an 85 percent year-over-year increase in downloads of our app. We're continuing to think through how we can innovate and create more player fan engagement during games. There are incredible opportunities, particularly once we advanced in our wearables exploration. We want to think about how you can overlay broadcast enhancements using wearables. That's the next frontier.”


Dalton (NWSL): “Twitch is one of our broadcast partners and they handle our international content. This has brought a whole new fan base to us. The interaction on Twitch…we've had a lot of fun with it. It led us to host our draft this year on Twitch. We also use Google Meet for our matches. Being first out of the box with Challenge Cup, who knew that a playground on the corner of the field, or a coffee truck, would have taken off the way they did. We made the most of it and it's been fun and light and we're going to continue to really focus in that area.”

PACKAGING & MARKETING 

Petrucelli (WWE): “It’s an advantage for us to highlight the best athletes, regardless of gender. They are all superstars, right? So who are the best athletes? And what are the best stories we want to tell? We're very data driven, so what our fans want, that's what we want to give them. We've seen such an increase of male fans, but also young boys, as supporters of our female superstars. When you see a little boy wearing a Charlotte Flair shirt, that is so awesome because it's not the way it was ten years ago. Our male roster is incredibly supportive of our women and vice versa. That's also been incredibly helpful as our business has grown.”

Donaphin (WNBA): “When we unveiled our new brand and identity two years ago, part of the exercise was saying, ‘We're over 20 years in now – if we were to start from scratch, what would we do?’ Where we landed was, we need to carve out a really strong identity, and part of our mission was to be a progressive league that boldly stands for the power of women. Being really clear in that identity has helped us as we've tried to drive a business model transformation. In 2020, our entire season – except for one week – overlapped with the NBA season. We still got viewership. We still had attention. We had a 350 percent increase in merchandise sales driven in large part by the success of the orange hoodie. That first week, because all of the NBA players were together in their bubble – an hour and a half away from Bradenton where we were having our season – it really showed solidarity. And it propelled the orange hoodie into this iconic thing people thought was cool.”

CLOSING COMMENTS

Allaster (USTA): “The one thing about sport is that during challenging times, we all came together and shared. I could call up any commissioner in the U.S. or abroad and everybody wanted to help. It has built confidence amongst players and partners. So with that, this was a moment of just sharing and getting together and being inspired. I'm certainly inspired by the work of Liz and Ricki and Laura and Bethany. So, rock on. History is our future, and our future is infinite.” 

Andress (SheIS): “I could not be prouder than this moment, with all of the top leagues and the USTA being on this call. We're just beginning to build. Sharing this information is essential for everyone. To every one of the panel members: thank you so much for being on this with us. We're so moved by it. SheIS was built on positivity. It was built to bring people together. Women's sports are taking off. There are indicators showing there's a change. The women were successful. The viewership was outstanding. I cannot thank you as our collective members for the Women Worth Watching campaigns we've done together. Also, for your 2020 leadership as you put women's sports on the map during COVID, and persevering and making it happen. I'm so happy that in 2020, women led the way.” 

About SheIS

Founded in 2017 and launched to the public on May 1, 2018, SheIS was established with a vision to use the power of sports to create a future of, by, and for strong women. Its mission is to connect with and mobilize fans to grow women’s sports. This is achieved through driving attendance and viewership of women’s sports at all levels, connecting through storytelling to inspire fans to take action, and centralizing resources to create sustainable growth of women’s sports. The SheIS Collective includes leaders from every major sport, and represents the first time in history that all of these sports leagues and organizations have stood together in support of one cause. To learn more, visit www.sheissport.com or follow the team on social media @teamsheis. 



#WomenWorthWatching

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