Maritime Junior Hockey League seeking women for coaching, operations jobs
A junior hockey league on the East Coast wants to create new opportunities for women by hiring up to 10 of them as assistant coaches and scouts for the upcoming season.
The Maritime Junior Hockey League says it will be the first league in Canada to offer such a program. League president Troy Dumville, who has been on the job for only two months, said women do not enjoy the same opportunities as men do when it comes to hockey operations jobs in the junior leagues.
"I think it's important for teams to be more diverse," he said in an interview Tuesday.
"It's an asset to have different opinions and perspectives .... The perception has been for years that it's an old boys' club. I think that it's important that all levels take steps to changing that, not just with women but with diversity in general."
The program will feature monthly guest lectures from influential women, including broadcaster Tara Slone, Hockey Nova Scotia executive director Amy Walsh and Meghan Chayka, co-founder of hockey analytics company Stathletes. These women will serve as mentors to those who get the new jobs, Dumville said.
Slone, former co-host of Rogers Hometown Hockey and an advocate for social change in sport, said hockey in Canada is at a crossroads.
"It's been a very homogeneous group of people running hockey," she said. "Obviously, when it comes to toxic masculinity and misogyny and matters of sexual assault and sexual impropriety, it's just so much easier to have that pack mentality when you don't see anything else but yourself.
"Just having women there, adding their voices and points of view, is going to make a massive difference. But this is just the beginning. Diversity can't just be one flavour."
Slone said she jumped at the chance to help with the MHL's diversity program. "I was blown away when Troy contacted me," she said. "It just takes somebody to say, 'I see that there needs to be some diversity in our leadership. It's not OK that we haven't made space for this.' And Troy did that."
Walsh said the program represents a step toward creating more equitable opportunities for women at the highest levels of the sport. "I believe that representation matters and that when you can see her, you can be her," Walsh said in a statement.
Dumville, who has worked as an NHL scout for several years, said the goals of the program go beyond promoting diversity within his 12-team league.
"The ultimate goal is to move (these women) along so that when teams in the NHL or other high levels of hockey are looking for candidates, they now have a pool of experienced women as well as men for those positions," he said.
The league is looking for women to serve as assistant coaches for New Brunswick's Grand Falls Rapids and Nova Scotia's Pictou County Crushers and Truro Bearcats. It also wants a female development coach for the Fredericton Red Wings and a number of scouts for the Red Wings, Crushers, New Brunswick's Campbellton Tigers and Nova Scotia's Valley Wildcats.
The deadline for applications is Aug. 31.
Dumville said women will get the first crack at applying for the jobs, but "we're not going to force somebody in that's not ready for that type of position," he said.
As well, he said he would like to see the program expanded to all 10 leagues in the Canadian Junior Hockey League. "There's no reason why this can't go national," he said.
Earlier Tuesday, Toronto lawyer Andrea Skinner was appointed interim chair of Hockey Canada's board of directors. She is the first woman to hold the position in the organization's history. She takes over from Michael Brind'Amour, who resigned last week.
Hockey Canada is under the microscope for its handling of sexual assault allegations against members of past junior men's hockey teams. The federal government has frozen its funding until Hockey Canada meets several conditions, including a plan to change the organization's culture.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2022.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'I just can't believe that it took so long': Body found in wreckage 3 months after deadly fire
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
No proof man lied to brother about number of kittens born in litter, B.C. tribunal rules
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Quebec police hand out hundreds of tickets to Hells Angels and other bikers before 'first run' meeting
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Feds hope to table foreign interference legislation next week: LeBlanc
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he plans to table legislation this week to help the federal government address foreign interference, but he wouldn't say whether the proposal will include a foreign agent registry.
Auston Matthews skates ahead of Game 7, status unclear with season on the line
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Snakes almost on a plane: U.S. TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger's pants
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.