“We are fortunate to be ambassadors of this game that we revere so deeply and yet, more than ever, we understand the responsibility that comes with that ambassadorship: to leave this game in better shape than when we entered it,” says the beginning to one of the most depressing Tweets I have seen as of late. 

The rest of the statement, put out by many professional hockey players this week, details the inadequacy of the state of professional women’s hockey in North America. 

The women who love this sport have decided to take a stand. They are boycotting their own game so that someone might see their point and do something about it. 

“Together as players, we will not play in ANY professional leagues in North America this season until we get the resources that professional hockey demands and deserves,” says the statement.

We may represent different teams, leagues and countries but collectively we stand as one.   #ForTheGame pic.twitter.com/O9MOOL8YOt

— Hilary Knight (@HilaryKnight) May 2, 2019

This comes not even two weeks after the Canadian Women’s Hockey League officially folded due to their “unsustainable” business model. The league announced this at the end of March and became officially defunct on May 1. 

This is not the first time we have seen female athletes speak up about pay discrimination, and that’s really what all of this is about. There are a lot of nitty-gritty details surrounding this boycott and what’s been done and is being done to work through it. There’s a lot to look into to understand why the Women’s National Basketball Association and National Women’s Soccer League are having or had more success than women’s hockey leagues.

But what it comes down to is equality: it’s that simple. 

To whomever may be reading this, please pay attention to sports outside of the NFL and NBA. So many other things are out there begging for your attention and it would really be a shame for people to lose their jobs and young people to lose their role models because our attention cannot be divided. 

From a business standpoint, the WNBA and NWSL seem to have more figured out. And they have more buy in from larger organizations like the NBA and US Soccer Federation. The NHL has been hesitant to offer the help they have. 

When there were still two leagues the NHL gave them each $50,000 a year. After the CWHL crumbled, the NHL said they would give all $100,000 to the NWHL. To put that in perspective, a player I know well, Colorado Avalanche first round draft pick Martin Kaut, who is only 19 years old and not even playing in the NHL, made $925,000 in his first year as a pro. This is pennies on the dollar of what he will likely make in his career as it takes off. High-end players like Conor McDavid can make closer to $15 million per season.

The NHL cannot think that an entire league can be run on a fraction of the salary of one teenage rookie. They must know that they are offering these women mere peanuts just to say that they support them. 

I’m not saying that the NHL offering up a bunch of money to support the women’s game is necessarily the answer. But it sure as h*ll couldn’t hurt. 

What would really help just as much, if not more than, money is fan support. How many of you even knew either of these women’s hockey leagues existed before you started reading this article? Did you even know there was a NWSL? Don’t feel guilty if you didn’t. 

These leagues don’t get articles written about them or get their games televised. So often the excuse is that no one will watch, there are no fans of women’s sports. This sends the message to sports editors and producers around the country that they will be wasting their time and money to show these stories. 

It’s honestly a vicious cycle, and sometimes I get down feeling like there isn’t a lot we can do to reverse it.

But we can. We can watch women’s sports when they do miraculously make it onto the TV. Watch women’s games when they play in the Olympics, read articles when something happens, buy a $20 t-shirt and wear it to a sports bar. Ask for someone to change the channel to put on a game, ask for someone to write an article on the women’s team in your town. Poke and prod until someone pays attention. Ignore the Twitter trolls who still try to make excuses for women’s sports being lesser. 

I know that I have written a lot of articles this year that seem to say the same thing, but this is me asking. To whomever may be reading this, please pay attention to sports outside of the NFL and NBA. So many other things are out there begging for your attention and it would really be a shame for people to lose their jobs and young people to lose their role models because our attention cannot be divided. 

That is the true consequence of letting this kind of discrimination continue. It sucks that women aren’t getting paid for their worth, but it sucks more that girls will grow up believing they cannot be a professional hockey player, or whatever else it may be, because they aren’t able to see it.

Ashley Potts can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @ashleypotts09.