i know this topic had received some attention on here and while most people didn't care some do.
The women's team had threatened to boycott the world cup due to inequity in funding and some other grievances with USA Hockey.
Tweets from people who know suggest the impasse has ended and they have an agreement to play.
If I find a source I'll post it if anyone even cares.
Well, if you can compete with the men, then fine. If not, you get paid less.
And, while there are a few out there that care, if the women's team disbanded I doubt there would be a whole lot of angst about it. The vast majority of people have no interest in watching women's hockey.
Not so sure about the salary though. I'm guessing that USA hockey doesn't give the men a salary, is that right? Google didn't find me a good source.
Opinion piece - no salary for US hockey women - ( New Window )
Additionally, the men have a 3.5M annual development budget for the US National Development Team. Which when you break down USA Hockey membership, there are around 600,000 members (players) all through youth hockey. 90% of them are male.
So, if you want a proportionate female expenditure it's like 350k.
Anyway, I'm glad it's resolved, I probably won't watch, maybe the gold medal game, but still probably not, but at least the US will have their best team on the ice.
I will say though that females probably represent the largest growth opportunity for USA Hockey. Not that males are tapped out, new kids start playing every year at crazy rates (in the Northeast and North Central US at least), but girls are starting to flock to the sport too.
You should look at the scholarship chances some day. Nearly impossible for a male to land a D1 US Hockey scholarship compared with a female.