A prominent voice on Saskatchewan Roughrider broadcasts on 620 CKRM this past year is making waves in the hockey world.
Daniella Ponticelli is one of a few female broadcasters for the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), a league of six teams that involve the best women’s hockey players on the planet.
Ponticelli joined “Good Morning Saskatchewan” with Gloria Evans and Cody Glydon Friday morning, and says the demand is high for women’s hockey in these markets.
“For fans in Toronto, there’s a secondary market for tickets. That’s how badly people want to get to these games,” Ponticelli said. “Especially (some people) who just assumed they could get tickets, they just assumed there’d be empty seats, and those season tickets for Toronto sold out so quickly. There was such an anticipation and excitement for it.”
Ponticelli says while not every broadcast of the PWHL is an all-female broadcast team, many of them are.
“That’s the joy of this league; it’s about equity, it’s about making sure that every team gets a standout broadcast team,” Ponticelli said. “Lots of women in the booth for sure, and that’s exciting. It’s certainly exciting for me to get to be part of it.”
Ponticelli will be on the broadcast for the U-18 Women’s Hockey Championship games this weekend. Her next PWHL broadcast will be January 13 in a game between Toronto and Ottawa.
Ponticelli adds while the league has an eastern-North American focus for the moment, she’s looking forward to the league expanding to include western Canada in the coming years.
