Cheers thundered across a packed arena in Ottawa as fans stood and shouted support for the home team and vitriol at the visitors. “New York sucks!” they chanted. Young girls in peewee jerseys, bearded bros in Ottawa red and women holding signs with slogans like “Girls Supporting Girls” all lent voice to the mounting excitement.
For this was February in Canada, where hockey has been depicted on 5-dollar bills and all levels of the sport are revered with an almost maniacal fervor.
When Ottawa scored to break a tie with only a few minutes to play, 8,000 fans erupted, signaling their emotional investment in the brand-new Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Women’s pro hockey has a fractured history, with various leagues on four continents dividing up the talent and fans. But now, for the first time, virtually all the best players are in one place, showcasing a skillful and rugged style that has fans riveted.
“Playing here is incredible,” Jaime Bourbonnais, a New York defender, said after the game. “Ottawa is very lucky to have the fans that they do. It feels like the fans are right on top of you.”
It has been a promising start for the fledgling league. In February, 19,285 supporters filled Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena to see their team play Montreal, establishing a new attendance record for women’s hockey. A month later, almost 14,000 showed up in Detroit — which does not even have a team — to watch Boston play Ottawa. That set a women’s record for the United States.
“It has gone beyond our wildest dreams,” said Stan Kasten, the veteran sports executive and a senior adviser to the league’s single owner, Mark Walter. Mr. Kasten said that when Montreal recently moved a game to a 21,000-seat downtown arena, tickets sold out in 20 minutes.
The league is on its way, with one notable exception: New York.
Despite a roster replete with talented, scrappy and likable players, New York has not matched the early buzz, for a variety of reasons. Home games are scattered over three arenas in three states, and the practice facility is 35 miles outside Manhattan. New York owns the worst record in the league and faces persistent questions over whether the city is even a “hockey town.”
But any new sports league seeking credibility and marketability wants a foothold in New York, with its ready-made media machine. That also means competing with numerous other entertainment options.
As the league was forming, the players’ union weighed in on all matters, including where the teams might take hold. “We thought of maybe going to the Midwest, where it’s smaller and hockey stands out more,” said Abby Roque, a New York forward and the daughter of a coach and an N.H.L. scout, who grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. “But the league said you can’t start a sports league and not have a team in New York City.”
Where they landed is not exactly Broadway. The team practices in Stamford, Conn., where most of the players live, and its home games are divided among Bridgeport, Conn., Newark and Elmont on Long Island. But no matter where the home games are, the stands have mostly been empty. New York has the worst attendance in the league, with an average of 2,325 spectators per home game.
If ticket sales continue to lag, there is no guarantee the league will keep the team in New York. So with every loss, the pressure mounts.
“I feel that every day,” said Micah Zandee-Hart, the team’s captain and a stalwart defender who grew up in British Columbia. “Being the captain of New York is something I take really seriously. It’s an honor, but it’s also a huge responsibility.”
During the furious closing seconds of the game in Ottawa, Ms. Zandee-Hart made a brilliant pass to Jessie Eldridge, but her shot was blocked. Ottawa withstood the onslaught and won. Before the Ottawa players left the ice, they formed a circle and waved their sticks to the adoring crowd. Virtually no one left until all the players had.
A week later, New York, in the midst of an agonizing losing streak, played a home game in Bridgeport. There were only 728 fans. They lost again.
“It’s frustrating in New York that our building is half empty all the time,” said Madison Packer, New York’s veteran forward. “But the talent on the ice has never been as good as it is now.”
The ‘Hockey Halfway House’
A dozen wine glasses clinked over an elongated dinner table at the Stamford house where Ms. Packer lives with her wife, Anya Packer, and their two toddlers. Coming off three straight losses, Ms. Packer decided it was the perfect time for a home-cooked team-bonding meal. About half the players were there, chatting amiably about hockey and their playing adventures in places like Sweden, China and Russia.
The Packers’ spacious colonial home is the team’s cultural hub, known as the Hockey Halfway House because there are usually a couple of teammates boarding there. Players earn more in the P.W.H.L. than they did in previous North American leagues, but the average salary is $55,000.
Emma Woods, a forward with one of the hardest shots in the league, lives with the Packers now, along with Chloé Aurard, a forward from France.
Madison Packer grew up in a Detroit suburb, playing with the sons and daughters of Red Wings players. She was a captain for the Metropolitan Riveters (who played at a rink in a mall in East Rutherford, N.J.) before that league folded last year.
She was a star at the University of Wisconsin, leading the Badgers to a national championship in 2011 against Boston University — and her future wife. They did not meet until long after that game, but today, on a shelf in their home, stand the champion and consolation trophies from the same championship game, one for each of them.
Anya played three seasons for the Connecticut Whale in the former league, later became general manager of the Riveters and is now a technology sales executive. Madison also works remotely as an executive recruiter. One of the few players in the league with children, she has a hectic schedule from morning until late at night, when she does her non-hockey work.
The day of the team dinner, for instance, she helped ready the kids for school before heading to a team weight-training session. From there it was to the rink in Stamford for practice, and then she rushed off to Greenwich Country Day School to hand out awards for the girls’ hockey team she coaches. She scooped up her children at school, drove back home through rush-hour traffic on the Merritt Parkway and helped prepare the steak dinner for her teammates.
After they ate, Ms. Packer dunked herself into a therapeutic cold tub while the other players settled into the living room to see Ottawa play Minnesota on TV. When the six cities were chosen for the first season of P.W.H.L., the league did not assign nicknames or logos. Organizers felt there was not enough time and did not want to saddle teams with poor choices. So for the first year, the uniforms are identical except for color schemes.
Watching the game, the teammates kibitzed about opponents they knew, pointing out on-ice tendencies and lamenting a season-ending wrist injury to Ottawa forward Kristin Della Rovere. The women “oooh”ed at a hard check, and that led to a discussion about the increased physical play in the new league — a style more associated with men’s hockey — that many believe has helped amplify the popularity of the P.W.H.L.
“It suits my game,” said Taylor Baker, a tough defender from Toronto, who brooks no harassment of her goalie. “I played against boys through high school, so I know how to hit and how to protect myself, too.”
The evening was relaxed, but New York still lost its next game and a week later tumbled into last place. Confidence was plummeting. Only two of the six teams will fail to earn a playoff spot when the postseason begins in May, and New York was growing desperate for a change of fortune and mojo.
Up in Smoke
As with losing teams everywhere, tension began to produce cracks. Pascal Daoust, New York’s general manager, punched a metal cabinet in his executive box during a loss to Minnesota. It made a dent in the door and word of it spread to the locker room, but the losing continued. After two more losses, he addressed the team following a practice, saying that if anyone was not fully invested, he would help them pack and drive them to the airport.
He said that while the players were all great friends and good people, they were not always being great teammates. Then he expressed belief in them, noting that even when he had chances to trade players away, he kept them all.
“No one remembers Cinderella on her knees cleaning up,” he said the next day, “only the happy ending. We still have time to turn this season into a Cinderella story.”
But the next night they lost again to Ottawa in Bridgeport, and frustration peaked. Shoving matches between New York and Ottawa players flared on the ice, and Alex Carpenter, New York’s superstar forward, who leads the league in assists, kicked the bench door after Ottawa scored in the final minute. Afterward, Ms. Packer fumed in a hallway, saying that the players could not complain about low attendance if they continued to lose.
“The finger-pointing, the blaming, what we are doing right now is just the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and over again,” she said. “Coaches should coach and players should play and players shouldn’t have coaching abilities. In any professional league I’ve ever been a part of, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The stinging criticism came several days after Ms. Packer had summoned everyone back to her house in the midst of the losing streak. That night, a bonfire crackled in the backyard. Seeking a way out of the gloom, the players scribbled on slips of paper things that had been nagging at them, things they wanted to let go of. They tossed it all into the flames and rising smoke. It did not work.
After the latest loss, Ms. Packer revealed what she wrote on her note that night: She had harbored second thoughts about joining the league. She is 32, with two adorable children, a loving wife and a good job outside of hockey. Who needs the aggravations? But she tossed her doubts into the fire and vowed to play on.
Out of ‘the Void’
After seven straight losses, New York took to the ice with one last chance to win before a monthlong hiatus for the Women’s World Championship. They skated with noticeable resolve, and almost 3,000 fans — New York’s second-highest home attendance of the season — added extra bounce to the proceedings. But like everything this year, it was not easy.
Jade Downie-Landrie scored two goals and New York buzzed to a 3-1 lead, but had to withstand Boston’s furious challenge in the final, frantic minute. Ms. Zandee-Hart dove on the ice to disrupt a Boston chance with only seconds to play, and when the horn blared, the losing streak was finally over. They were still in last place, but New York players streamed off the bench in jubilation.
Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blared from the P.A. system, washing over them as they celebrated and saluted the fans. The joy continued in the locker room, where Howie Draper, the coach, issued a congratulatory speech he had waited a month to give.
“Every team, every athlete at some point goes through the void,” he told the players. “I think we went into the void, and it seemed like it was forever. But you worked your way out of it.”
The victory ensured the players would not spend the month brooding, and they were given a few days off before practices resumed ahead of an April 20 home game, the team’s first at the New Jersey Devils’ arena in Newark, a building that could eventually become their permanent home.
“We are evaluating every venue in every city for next year,” Mr. Kasten, the league adviser, said in a text message.
But that is not foremost on Ms. Zandee-Hart’s mind. During the break, the New York captain went to Maine with her partner, still clinging to the hope that New York can overcome the odds to make the playoffs, and listen to that sweet music again — in whatever state they play it.
“Hearing ‘New York, New York,’ when we won, that was such a great feeling,” she recalled. “It rejuvenated the energy we had been slowly losing. We are still in this thing. We can make it work. We have to make it work.”
