American hockey fans, queue up your DVRs, the best players in the world will be representing the United States in the 2017 Women’s World Championship starting tonight, March 31 through Friday April 7, with all USA games streaming for free on NHL.com all week long.

Last week, I shared with you a story of the ongoing USWNT boycott of the IIHF World Championship games. This week, I’m happy to say that the team and USA Hockey came to an agreement and the women have been granted some pretty great amenities and will be playing their first game of the tourney tonight, against Canada.

After months (and months and months) of negotiations and most notably, the recent, very public fallout from said negotiations, the US Women’s Hockey team has finally been awarded by USA Hockey the financial, professional and developmental security that they have worked all their lives to earn. In a landmark decision announced earlier this week, USA Hockey agreed to the terms set forth by the Women’s Hockey team and the girls hopped on a plane to Michigan in time to get a few days of practice in before the games start.

It seems fitting that on the last day of March, what is considered “Women’s Month”, we get to watch the U.S. Women’s 2016 gold medal winning hockey team reap the benefits of their hard work. It’s empowering to know that these women–the current roster players, the juniors, the back ups, everyone, down to the high school coaches and beer leaguers–stood together to accomplish change for future generations of female athletes.

xoxo C. Diva

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