This was not a public shaming. This was normalization of men’s hockey players’ poor behavior.

watch the full monologue

First, let me set the scene.

My first thought when I saw this picture was: “this photograph needs to be analyzed on a sociological level”. [watch my vid]

In the center, you have Connor Storrie, who skyrocketed to fame from playing a closeted Russian bisexual hockey player on Heated Rivalry. Heated Rivalry skyrocketed interest in hockey amongst the general public.

Next to him, you have Megan Keller and Hilary Knight, who just won gold at the Olympics with the US women’s hockey team. Both women’s hockey players also won gold at the 2018 Olympics. Hilary Knight is the GOAT, currently holding the American Olympic goals record with 15, and scored the gold medal game-tying goal on a torn MCL. Hilary Knight is an openly queer athlete, and just got engaged to her partner, Brittany Bowe, who is also an Olympian. Knight has spoken on tiktok about what the show meant to her.

On the edges you have Quinn Hughes and Jack Hughes who just won gold medals at the Olympics with the US men’s hockey team. Both of them were in the locker room when Donald Trump made the distasteful joke about the women’s hockey team “I guess I have to invite the women’s team”. After this they proceeded to go to the White house to celebrate their win with Donald Trump.

Here’s why this didn’t sit right with me.

Hilary Knight jokes, “It was gonna be just us but we thought we’d invite the guys too”. This is obviously a reference to the phone call joke made by Donald Trump. This draws a false equivalence between the two jokes. This minimizes the harm of the locker room joke and makes it seem like everything is OK now.

The joke that Donald Trump made is mean-spirited. It was a joke at the expense of the women’s team. It wasn’t made in the presence of the women’s team. The “joke” is that he clearly doesn’t want to invite the women’s team. It is a joke laughing at the women’s team.

Meanwhile, the joke that Hilary Knight says on SNL is kind-spirited. It’s made within the presence of the men’s team. It feels almost like a forgiveness. They are laughing with the men’s team, not at them. This is because there is no possible reality where the men would not have been invited to SNL. The men behaved in the worst possible way they could have behaved and were still invited.

Before the women appear on stage, Connor Storrie and the Hughes brothers joke that Heated Rivalry isn’t actually about hockey. But I disagree. Heated Rivalry is about hockey. It’s about homophobia in hockey. There’s a reason that there has never been an openly queer player in the NHL. The Hughes brothers and their peers reinforce homophobia in hockey through their behavior in the locker room and by going to visit Donald Trump.

Women are constantly put in a position where they have to take the higher road. This photograph says a lot about this moment in hockey culture. Queer hockey is the future. Women’s hockey is the future. Black hockey is the future. This is how we grow the sport. Men’s hockey players are willing to get up on stage and stand next to queer people but will not stand up for marginalized communities behind closed doors (think Empty Netters podcast).

It was really nice of the women’s hockey team to “invite” the men’s hockey team. But if men’s hockey players are going to continue to be assholes, I don’t think they deserve to be invited.

watch my analysis on youtube.

link to PWHL schedule

link to PWHL standings

Each team plays 30 total games.

Here’s what the columns mean:

The standings are determined by points, not win percentage.

Let’s use the Seattle Torrent.

If Seattle has:

That brings them to 16 points overall.

The top four teams make the playoffs.

Players who want to enter the league must declare for the draft.

New players participate in the Entry Draft, where teams select players in a specific draft order.

But here’s the twist: The last-place team is not automatically first overall.

The PWHL uses something called the Gold Plan to prevent tanking while still giving lower-ranked teams an advantage.

The Gold Plan kicks in once a team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

It means that, in every possible remaining scenario, there’s no way for that team to finish in the top four.

For example:

If Seattle had three games left and was 10 points behind the fourth-place team, they would be eliminated. This is because the maximum points they could earn from three regulation wins is:

3 games × 3 points = 9 points

They can’t make up the 10-point gap. So there’s no way for them to make the playoffs.

Once a team is mathematically eliminated, every point they earn after that counts towards their draft order.

For example, if both Seattle and Vancouver were eliminated with three games remaining, the team that earns more points in those final three games would get the higher draft pick.

Tanking to be eliminated early still kind of helps you because you have more potential games in which you can earn draft order points.

The draft happens in the summer. Current projected top prospects include:

The exact order will likely depend on team needs.

If there’s an expansion draft, that would most likely happen before the Entry Draft. The Entry Draft would apply to all teams, including expansion teams. However, in the last expansion process, Gold Plan teams from the previous season still selected first.

Watch my full standings & draft order explainer here

The league is expected to expand by four teams in the next few years. There’s no official timeline yet. But we do have data from the PWHL’s neutral-site “Takeover Tour” games, which are basically live market tests.

Here’s my best guess at the next four expansion cities based on two things:

I referenced this Games By Venue Wikipedia article for Takeover Tour attendance data.

1. Detroit

I think the PWHL will definitely expand to Detroit. I would genuinely bet money on this one.

They want a team so badly. The infrastructure is there. Michigan is full of rinks. Even if they can’t play full-time at Little Caesars Arena, I could see something similar to Montreal’s setup: play in a smaller arena most of the season, then host a marquee game at LCA once a year.

2. Denver

Even if they can’t play at Ball Arena, Colorado has lots of rinks. Watch my video about Denver.

3. Halifax

Halifax is super interesting. They played two games there this year and sold out both with around 10,000 seats each time. A PWHL team there could just play at Scotiabank Centre full-time. Travel could be a concern but if the PWHL was concerned about travel I don’t think they would have expanded to the West Coast so early.

4. Edmonton

Edmonton had 17,000 fans at a February 2025 Takeover game. They have two more games there this year. Interestingly, the first Takeover game only sold around 10,000 tickets. I’m not sure if that was marketing or timing but clearly the ceiling is much higher.

Honorable Mentions

watch my full expansion explainer here

I freaking love living in Seattle. We are such a women’s sports city. Not only did we sell that place out, the crowd was freaking LIT. Sure, Torrent may have lost, but it was such an incredibly fun game.

Watch my game recap 👇

If you haven’t seen the Torrent pre-game intro, you need to watch it. So cool to see everyone with their phone lights on.

Just recorded a ✨podcast✨… stay tuned!

Questions? Comments? Come hang on Discord!