Kaitlyn’s Sport Stories Recap: December 4, 2023

Welcome to our Kaitlyn’s Sport Stories Recap – a weekly feature on what’s been happening in the sport and physical activity world for girls and women in sport in Canada (and beyond)! In our third edition, we learn more about how Black Girl Hockey Club (BGHC) Canada is opening up more opportunities for Black girls and women across Canada, a week full of wins for our Canadian women athletes across multiple sports, and the newest Professional Women’s Hockey League, the PWHL and the four-week countdown until it’s inaugural season.

The stories of the week show young girls in sport and physical activity that: 

1. There are some great organizations in Canada doing important and influential work to reduce the barriers that many girls face, when it comes to playing a new sport;
2. Amongst multiple sports, including swimming and skiing, women athletes successfully represent their skills and the talent pool in Canada every day, inspiring the next generation and being role models;
3. In a very short amount of time, a new professional women’s league and its availability in cities across Canada will increase, allowing for more opportunities to attend live games, a new team to cheer on, and a more significant representation of professional athletes for girls to look up to.

More Black Girls And Women Can Get Into The Game Of Hockey Thanks To Black Girl Hockey Club Canada

Black Girl Hockey Club (BGHC) Canada has partnered with the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) Goals & Dreams fund to gift 25 Black girls and women across Canada with the necessary hockey equipment to begin learning and playing hockey. The partnership will help provide Black girls and women with equipment such as helmets, skates, hockey pants, and gloves.  

Saroya Tinker, the Executive Director of BGHC Canada and a former professional hockey player herself states that this partnership and the reach of this opportunity will be especially important because it will allow “more people from diverse backgrounds on the ice.”

The deadline to fill out an application for a chance to be gifted hockey equipment is December 13, 2023. The winners will be notified by December 14, 2023, about the status of their application. For more information on the giveaway and to enter for a chance to win hockey equipment, click here.

A Winning Week For Basketball, Skiing, Soccer, And Swimming

• Canada Basketball’s 3×3 Women’s National Team took home a bronze medal on December 3, 2023, after their 21-8 win against Chile during the 2023 FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

• Canadian freestyle skier Marion Thénault landed a gold medal during the women’s aerials World Cup on December 3, 2023 in Ruka, Finland. Thénault received a first-place score of 99.05. This win now marks the athlete’s third World Cup victory.

• Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team defeated Australia 5-0 on December 2, 2023, in front of a sold-out crowd in Langford, British Columbia. The game marked Canadian soccer legend Christine Sinclair’s second last game of her professional soccer career.
• Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh won first place during the women’s 400-metre freestyle final on November 30, 2023, during the U.S. Open Swimming Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina. McIntosh put on a strong performance with a time of 3:59.42 while also delivering a dominating victory against US swimmer and seven-time Olympian Katie Ledecky, who had previously held the swim meet record.

Mark Your Calendars; Women’s Professional Hockey Is Coming To Town

The newly formed Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and its six teams across Canada and the United States are set to drop the puck as soon as January 1, 2024!

For its inaugural season, the PWHL will have teams in Montréal, Ottawa, and Toronto in Canada, and Boston, Minnesota, and New York in the United States. 

The inaugural season schedule was released this past week, and it’s a good one! The first game in league history will be a matchup between Toronto and New York on January 1, 2024, at 12:30 PM EST, at Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Ontario. The inaugural home game for team Ottawa will be a matchup against Montréal on January 2, 2024, at 7:00 PM EST, at TD Place in Ottawa, Ontario. The inaugural home game for team Montréal will be against Boston on January 13, 2024, at 3:30 PM EST, at Verdun Auditorium in Montréal, Québec. 

The following home opener games for the other three teams will occur between January 3 and January 6, 2024. To learn more about the entire 2024 season schedule, click here, and to keep up to date on all ticket-related matters, click here. 

Select PWHL players will also compete in the Canadian Tire PWHL 3-on 3-showcase during the 2024 NHL All-Star weekend in Toronto, Ontario, on February 1, 2024. The All-Star game will take place at Scotiabank Arena. Tickets are available as of December 5, 2023, at 10:00 AM EST through Ticketmaster. Click here to secure your ticket.

Kaitlyn’s Sport Stories Recap are written by Kaitlyn Lehbert, a passionate and driven sport advocate for girls and women. Kaitlyn holds her Bachelor’s degree in Sports Management from Brock University. Learn more about Kaitlyn by clicking here!

Have a sport story you want to share? Contact info@fastandfemale.com and it may get featured in Kaitlyn’s next feature.