She Is The First

It's not often that women get mentioned during the bantam drafts in the Canadian Hockey League, but we've seen a handful of women who have made impacts in the CHL including Charline Labonté, Manon Rheaume, Shannon Szabados, and Ève Gascon. These women share a common position as netminders, and there's no denying that goalies, whether male or female, can have a big impact on the game. What we don't see, though, are girls being drafted at positions outside the crease, but that all changed on Thursday when the WHL's Vancouver Giants made a bold decision late in the WHL Bantam Draft by selecting 15 year-old defender Chloe Primerano as the first female skater in the Canadian Hockey League!

Chloe Primerano skates for the Burnaby Winter Club U15 Prep Team where she plays alongside the boys! Normally, I have my ear to the ground for any and all female players who are catching eyes for the university level, but Chloe's age means I didn't know a lot about her before yesterday's selection by the Giants who chose Primerano 268th-overall in the 13th round of the draft!

In doing some preliminary research, Primerano looks like she's a solid defender who plays well at both ends of the ice as she's amassed 19 points in 30 games against the boys, putting her as the second-highest scorer on the blueline for the Burnaby Winter Club U15 Prep Team. She may only have two goals this season, but that's offset by the fact that she's only been assessed one minor penalty all season long!

Her selection by the Giants got her a little national attention as well as the guys from Hockey Night in Canada spoke to the potential Giants defender about being drafted into the WHL!
I'm not gonna rip on her favorite player, but she looks considerably better with the puck than Duncan Keith does in his current form. Either way, though, here's hoping that she can skate in a couple of preseason games to see if the WHL game is what she wants to pursue because it seems she has the talent to be a solid player if everything works out!

I can already hear some people saying, "Yeah, but Teebz, there's bodychecking by some big dudes in the WHL," and I'd agree with that assessment. You can legitimately say that players like Jamie Benn, Milan Lucic, and Dion Phaneuf all played in the WHL before having successful NHL careers, and none of those guys shied away from throwing a hit in their junior days.

We often forget that there were guys who could skate well and move the puck without being overly-physical, though, so one has to remember that Scott Niedermayer, Patrick Marleau, and Cliff Ronning did their best work while skating with the puck rather than while they were knocking players off the puck. If Chloe Primerano can avoid big hits like a Niedermayer or Ronning, she should do well as a puck-moving defender while being somewhat smaller than the handful of beasts who skate in the WHL!

What may interest people is that the SDHL, the Swedish professional women's league, announced today that they'll introduce hitting as part of the game next season. Before everyone gets excited, there will be some limitations placed on the ladies in the SDHL in terms of what hitting will be permitted and what will not as this new element to the game is evaluated in Sweden. Open-ice hits will not be allowed under the new rules, but checks along the boards will be.

"We have allowed more physical play in SDHL the last four seasons with good results," Morgan Johansson, project manager for Project Zero Vision, stated. "It is difficult to say without facts on the table that more physical play means fewer concussions, but now we have that basis. It feels incredibly exciting that Swedish ice hockey can be pioneers in introducing tackles in women's hockey."

As a hockey purist for the women's game, I'm torn about this, but the findings on concussions in the SDHL and the reduction in the number of concussions with increased physicality might be worth a season of hitting. Either way, though, there seems to be more and more women who want hitting as part of the game, so we'll see where this new wrinkle in the SDHL takes us, especially as the season progresses.

With Chloe needing to figure out the bodychecking in the WHL, perhaps she'll have an edge on other players if she ever moves on to play internationally for Canada in the women's game. For now, though, it's pretty exciting to see a skater drafted in the WHL Bantam Draft as the gaps between men's hockey and women's hockey closes a little more with the Giants making this pick. And while there's no guarantee that Chloe Primerano will skate for the Giants regularly, simply getting out there for a shift in a WHL game smashes yet another ceiling for all women in the game.

Congratulations, Chloe, and we're cheering for you as you begin writing the next chapter in your hockey story!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!