Elite Prospects, one of the internet’s indispensable hockey resources, began adding female hockey players to the database last summer. It was a big step in broadening their coverage to include international women’s hockey tournaments, and, in North America, the CWHL and NWHL.
Thursday, the site announced that they are adding women’s hockey transactions to the site. The same way the site tracks men’s hockey transactions across the globe at all levels, there is now a resource to get up to date transfer information about women’s hockey.
“We received a lot of praise after introducing women’s hockey last summer,” site founder and Business Manager Johan Nilsson told The Hockey Writers. “During the course of this season we also noticed that female player profiles and club pages received many more clicks than we expected. So, now, starting to cover transactions is just a natural step forward.”
We have now started covering women's hockey transactions. https://t.co/vwb34Xx6Gt #eliteprospects pic.twitter.com/VXzddk3l7J
— Elite Prospects (@eliteprospects) April 21, 2016
A natural step forward that makes the international landscape of women’s hockey much easier to follow as summer transaction seasons kicks off. The timing is great for fans. The CWHL draft is around the corner, restricted free agency has begun in the NWHL and free agency there is less than two weeks away.
We have also learned that this isn’t the last step the site will be taking to help casual fans to survey the landscape with ease.
“We are planning to launch an alternative start page of EP for those that primarily follow women’s hockey,” Nilsson said. “This will mean that the navigational menus will include links to women’s hockey leagues and teams and various statistical widgets and features will show stats from leagues such as NWHL, NCAA and the top women’s leagues in Europe.”
It’s a significant development for fans, when other statistical databases like Hockey DB and Hockey Reference do not currently provide access to women’s hockey statistics.
With the number of international tournaments top players play — Four Nations Cup, World Championships, Olympics — and the lack of a single top league, having a place to go where you could see Gigi Marvin’s production with the Boston Blades of the CWHL next to her production with the Boston Pride of the NWHL is useful for media, but also for fans who want to get a better understanding of the game they love.
“Promoting the sport of hockey is one of our major goals,” Nilsson said, “and we will continue to do that the best way we can.”