Tonight the NWHL hosted their 2021 Entry Draft and some of their top picks are just further proof that Robert Morris shouldn’t shut down their hockey programs. Earlier this year, RMU announced that they are eliminating their men’s and women’s hockey programs. Both programs have had amazing success, they’ve had plenty of great players pass through their school. This year, their women’s team won the 2021 CHA playoff championship in a row.
That explains why 3 of their players went in the first 3 rounds of this NWHL draft.
Emilie Harley was drafted 2nd overall by the Buffalo Beauts. Harley is a defenseman who put up 46 points (10 G 36A) in her 130 college career games with a +5 average rating.
Anjelica Diffendal was also drafted by the Buffalo Beauts at 7th overall. Diffendal is a forward who put up 40 points (24G 16A) in her 122 career games while averaging a .33 PPG.
And Leah Marino was taken by the Toronto Six at 16th overall. Marino, also a forward, that did 3 years at RMU and put together 11 points (5G 6A) in her 97 games.
All these players were key to RMU’s success and now they have all been drafted right into pro-hockey. And what has their alma mater gone and done? Cancel the chance of this happening again. There’s two other RMU grads in the NWHL, Natalie Marcuzzi and Maggie LaGue. The PWHPA has 3 more: Brittany Howard, Anissa Gamble, and Kristen Richards.
This has been a program that has proved that it can bring success and what do they get? An out of the blue cancellation to everything they built. It’s such bullshit. It’s such a slap in the face to all the people who have put blood, sweat, and tears into that organization to see them reach even further success. Oh they would have, they were building to great things. This year it was 3, who knows how many of their players could have been drafted next year. Such a shame.
At least the athletes are fighting back. According to this article, they’ve hired one of the best lawyers out there -Jeffery Kessler, ever heard of him- to try and save their program and I hope they do it. This program deserves to live on and see many, many years of success.
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