Team USA to sit out of 2017 IIHF Women’s World Championships

Happy Wednesday, y’all.

Team USA national players dropped a huge announcement via social media on Wednesday as multiple players tweeted out their intent to boycott the 2017 IIHF Women’s World Championships unless “significant progress is made on the year-long negotiations with USA Hockey over fair wages and equitable support.”

ESPN broke the news with two different articles, one detailing the boycott itself and then another by Julie Foudy, a 17-year member of USA Soccer detailing some of the similar issues that they went through on the soccer side of things. Foudy’s piece especially highlights the struggles that the players had with getting recognition.

Two lawyers, John Langel and Dee Spagnuolo of Ballard Spahr are representing the national team pro bono. Those names sound familiar? They’ve represented US soccer players for over a decade.

The US team has a lot of leverage in this situation. The negotiations between the players and USA hockey have been going on for over a year now, per the player’s statements, with no meaningful progress. If the home team doesn’t show up in the biggest international state besides the Olympics, that’s a big hit for USA Hockey and casts a shadow over the organization they surely don’t want.

We’ll have more updates on this story as we get them.