In early October, Yurie Adachi, a member of the Japanese women’s national hockey team, was preparing for a late-night practice in Tokyo when she met a visitor from New York. Adachi, who does not speak much English, smiled and offered a one-word greeting: “Riveters.”
Since junior high school, Adachi has played with Nana Fujimoto, the Japanese goaltender who competed in the inaugural season of the National Women’s Hockey League in 2015. Adachi kept track of Fujimoto with the Riveters, the league’s New York-area franchise that now plays its home games in Newark.
“Canada, United States are wonderful environments for hockey,” Adachi said through an interpreter, sitting in an aging rink where water from the roof leaked onto the ice.
The formation of the N.W.H.L. was a significant moment. Female hockey players in the United States would finally receive salaries as professionals. The first season of operation was largely deemed a success, with paid attendance, the league said, of 1,000 per game.
Continue reading the main storySo the N.W.H.L.’s players were staggered when they were notified on Thursday that their salaries would be cut to keep the league afloat this season. According to the league, average attendance has dropped to 600. Now, with the future of the N.W.H.L. uncertain, players are calling for more transparency from the league office.
“They’ve made that clear, that we need to rebuild some trust,” Dani Rylan, the N.W.H.L.’s commissioner, said on Sunday during the Riveters’ 4-0 win over the Connecticut Whale in Newark. “I think trust is a two-way street. Even though it was an unfortunate set of circumstances, it might end up realigning us and putting us back on that path together.”
This season, player salaries ranged from $10,000 to $26,000. Originally, some players said, they were told that salaries would be cut in half. But multiple sources with direct knowledge of the league’s finances confirmed the actual pay cut would be 38 percent, the reduction softened by a recent $50,000 contribution by Dunkin’ Donuts.
Meanwhile, many players are troubled because they have received little information about the league’s condition.
“There are many things since their inception that have been a state secret,” said Brant Feldman, managing partner of American Group Management, who has represented women’s hockey players since 2006. “If you operate something without a public image to it, I get it, but if you’re operating a sports league of any sort, you need things done in a public-facing manner.”
N.W.H.L. players, in a statement released Saturday through social media, called for an independent audit of the league’s finances, disclosure of the identity of investors and an explanation of why revenue has diminished so quickly.
“The biggest thing is we need transparency right now,” Riveters forward Bray Ketchum said.
Of the players’ demands, Rylan said: “There are some things we will work with the players on. There are some demands that we might not be able to, but I think that we are committed to working together.”
On Sunday, the league’s four teams — the Riveters, the Whale, the Boston Pride and the Buffalo Beauts — played for the first time since the salary cuts. Getting back on the ice had the effect of cooling emotions. Some players had contemplated walking away from the league rather than accept its new circumstances.
“I can understand how much it hurts them and if they feel a bit betrayed and they can’t trust this league right now,” Pride forward Rachel Llanes said.
The league has a players’ association, but there is no collective bargaining agreement. Christopher Fusco, managing partner of the law firm Callahan and Fusco, has a background in sports and employment law. He said he thought cutting salary without any negotiations was an unfair labor practice. But without a collective bargaining agreement, he added, players do not have much recourse unless they are willing to walk out.
Opt-out clauses were added to player contracts this season, but few are likely to use them. For the players, a 38 percent pay cut meant that game preparation was replaced by questions about paying rent, getting out of leases or becoming eligible for unemployment benefits. The Riveters have been discussing ways to raise money and pitch in to help teammates under serious financial strain. Riveters defender Kiira Dosdall and other players also thought the role of the players’ association should be reassessed.
On the management side, Rylan said she had no doubt this season would be completed but added that attracting sponsors had been harder than expected.
Before Dunkin’ Donuts agreed to give $50,000 toward salaries, players had received $400 Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards each season. Tom Manchester, the company’s vice president for field marketing in the United States, said it was possible the company would provide further salary contributions.
Although the N.H.L. has collaborated with the N.W.H.L., there is no formal partnership between the two, or with the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, another women’s professional league, which is in its 10th season.
In an email, an N.H.L. spokesman said that the league was supportive of women’s hockey but that it had “always questioned the viability of two professional women’s leagues and the sustainability of the current business model.”
Riveters forward Janine Weber said everyone understood the risks involved in joining a start-up venture that was bound to encounter setbacks. Amid these flaws, the N.W.H.L. has had its groundbreaking moments, as well.
Kelsey Koelzer is believed to be the first African-American taken first over all in a top-tier American hockey league draft when the Riveters selected her in June. Last month, Harrison Browne became the first openly transgender athlete in professional team sports in North America.
The league has also continually raised money for Denna Laing, the Pride player who was badly injured last December during an outdoor game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
The league, which this season has a 21-game schedule that runs from October to April, and rosters with up to 23 players, has provided a showcase for stars of the United States national team, effectively expanding the quadrennial spotlight of the Olympics. This has been enticing for international players like Fujimoto who are looking to test their skills against the world’s best. For American women who do not make the national team, hockey no longer has to end after college.
Ashley Johnston, the Riveters’ captain, works as a mechanical engineer in Albany and commutes to Newark for practices and games. Johnston, who believed her career was over after graduating from Union College in 2014, has become a fan favorite.
As a players’ association representative, Johnston was among the first to learn of the cuts, in her case through a conference call with the league on Thursday. She cried as she told her teammates the news.
Some within the league believed the N.W.H.L. would have folded if the players sat out Sunday’s games. Members of the Pride and the Riveters confirmed that their teams discussed not playing, but they chose instead to take the ice.
“I definitely get it,” Johnston said of dissenting feelings toward the league. “That is an immediate reaction. Again, there’s nothing easy about this situation.”
Llanes, who runs a side business as a coach and trainer, was upset with the salary cuts but saw a chance to change the league for the better.
“I’m going to continue to look at this from a business standpoint,” she said. “It happens everywhere in the real world. It’s huge for us. It gives us an opportunity to take a step in a different direction. Maybe we can ask a little bit more of ourselves to grow the game. You see the U.S. national team for soccer, the amount they had to put in. That was huge. I don’t think we’re anywhere near that yet.”
The league is on break until Dec. 3. Rylan said she was working through the Thanksgiving holiday to find solutions.
“It’s a crucial two weeks,” Johnston said. “Things take time. We might not necessarily have all the solutions, but we can have plans.”
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