The NWHL (National Women’s Hockey League) has officially re-branded to the Professional Hockey Federation or PHF. The news was formally announced earlier today but it was leaked all over Twitter last night so this does not come as a huge shock. Regardless, this is big news. I wanted to wait until the league (federation?) announced it themselves and gave their reasons before I went off speculation. You can read the whole press release here and I implore you do. It offers some good insight into this decision and I have to say that I really like this move.
Madison Packer, a 7-year veteran of the federation, summed it up really well:
“I understand and appreciate not having to define ourselves as female athletes anymore. Now we are defining players based on skill and what they bring to the game. This is about recognizing that regardless of gender, athletes are talented.”
-Madison Packer (x)
I despise when people tag ‘woman’ or ‘female’ onto anything I do. There’s plenty of women in the world who find empowerment in that and that’s perfectly fine but for me personally, I can’t stand it. I don’t like being called a “female blogger”, or a “woman in animation”. I am a blogger and an animator, plain and simple. It’s not necessary to tag my gender onto everything I do and the same goes for athletes. They’re professional athletes. Period. We don’t need to constantly label this and stipulate “well they’re good for a women’s league“. No, they’re a talented hockey player, end of fucking story. Judge them based on skill, not gender.
So personally, I love this. It’s going to take a while for me to get used to a new name but in time we’ll get there. I’ll be updating the Ham Sports “NWHL” tage to “PHF (NWHL)”, just for now so things don’t get too confusing. Overall I like the new name, love the meaning, but in all honestly I’m not a huge fan of the logo itself. It feels a bit more football (soccer if you’re American) to me more than hockey but that’s just my feelings. New season starts November 6th and I cannot wait.
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Featured Image: Screenshot of PHF's twitter account
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