As the PWHL scores big, a bold new wave of female hockey commentators are calling the shots

Daniella Ponticelli got her start broadcasting roller derby. Kenzie Lalonde once did commentary for high-school sports, often soccer in the pouring rain when half the players weren’t wearing jersey numbers. Claudine Douville got behind a microphone some 40 years ago and waited decades to meet other women doing sport play-by-play.

They’ve each had a fascinating range of broadcast experiences, but today these Canadian women share something in common. They’re among several broadcasters in the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s inaugural season, women whose voices have quickly become the soundtrack of this burgeoning pro league.

Ponticelli did play-by-play for the inaugural PWHL game on Jan. 1, a game that drew a combined 2.9 million viewers across the country over the league’s three Canadian broadcasters, CBC, Sportsnet and TSN. She called the league’s first goal. “Ella Shelton scores! History is hers,” Ponticelli proclaimed, as the jubilant New York defender was swarmed by teammates.

Ponticelli has called more than two dozen PWHL games for the Canadian networks this season, plus the league’s YouTube channel, including the current playoff series between Toronto and Minnesota. There are many women starring on PWHL broadcasts, on both sides of the border, doing play-by-play, analysis, reporting rinkside or as panelists. Not every broadcast of the PWHL is an all-female broadcast team, but many are.

Ponticelli is energetic, with a polished rasp to her voice, authoritative in her running commentary of the action, introducing viewers to players and their stories in the long-awaited new six-team pro league. She is always joined by a colour analyst, former players such as Canadian Olympic gold medalists Becky Kellar and Cheryl Pounder, or Saroya Tinker, of the former Premier Hockey Federation.