Happy New Year, everyone!
As our tradition, we publish our lists of wishes hopes for 2025 in field hockey, lacrosse, and women’s athletics in general.
I hope that the novelty of the Unrivaled 3-x-3 league will go from being a novelty act and will lead to, perhaps, an expanded WNBA lasting somewhere between 64 to 82 games. With salaries to match, so that you don’t see Americans going overseas to supplement their income.
I hope that women’s soccer isn’t expanding too quickly. Sure, it’s great that the NWSL and USL are growing, but I really hope that those in an expanding alphabet-soup of organizations aren’t cutting corners, and missing out on due diligence so that persons with predatory personalities aren’t put in charge.
I hope for the continued improvement of players in the U.S. development apparatus in field hockey. There are some amazing players representing the States in both indoor and outdoor hockey, and there are some people to watch out for.
I hope Erin Matson will make a bold statement in the Rohrmax Cup this month and perhaps earn an invite from the U.S. outdoor coaching staff for play this year.
I hope that the Women’s Lacrosse League makes an immediate pivot from Sixes to full-field lacrosse. Why not spring of 2025, after the inaugural weekend in Springfield, Va.?
I hope the continuing specter of money in college athletics does not wind up driving more quality coaches out of their jobs.
I wish Athletes Unlimited would consider field hockey to be their next women’s sports promotional opportunity now that lacrosse is not taking place in 2025.
I wish for more artificial grass facilities like the Proving Grounds and the River City Sportsplex to build the capacity for scholastic varsity and club tournaments.
I hope the NCAA will consider carefully its forthcoming national championship tournaments to allow more fans to come out to games, especially when it comes to scheduling afternoon weekday games. I really don’t want to see field hockey and lacrosse getting an idea from soccer and scheduling national semifinals and finals at times and locations completely inaccessible to even local fans.
I hope a surge of New England women’s lacrosse fans come out to Foxboro to fill out the bowl for the NCAA Division I women’s tournament final. With a capacity of 65,000, they’re going to need folks to counter the narrative that “nobody goes to women’s sports events.”
I hope that there will be continued success for WNBA crowds, to the point where every team will have to move home games to the largest available arena for games involving teams other than the Indiana Fever.
I hope that more enforcement mechanisms are brought to bear to U.S. SafeSport; the experiences of the NWSL the last three years demonstrate that there are still holes big enough to drive a truck through.
I hope that we don’t see the kinds of chicanery we’re seeing in football and men’s basketball — especially defection of a chunk of the Marshall football team — occur in other sports.
I hope that people who have no interest in seeing women’s sports succeed will keep their hands off the mechanisms of finance or governance of the same.
And I wish great health and happiness to you, my readers. Without you, this site would be howling at the void.