Last week’s announcement that hundreds of professional women’s hockey players would be sitting out the upcoming NWHL season was heralded as the beginning of a landmark movement for the advancement of the game and gender equity as a whole.



The statement, issued by some of the game’s top figures in both the U.S. and Canada — Hilary Knight, Kendall Coyne-Schofield, Marie-Philip Poulin and Shannon Szabados — reverberated throughout the larger hockey community and captivated the attention of the public smack dab in the middle of the NHL playoffs. And while it initiated an important conversation about the direction of the women’s game, there remains a sizeable contingent of players who did not sign on for the call to action.



The reported 200-plus players vowed not to play in any professional North American league preached solidarity and said they banded together to build a better long-term solution for the future. And those...