To celebrate International Women’s Day, NHL Network will be airing an all-female edition of NHL Now on Monday at 4 p.m. ET, according to Awful Announcing’s Andrew Bucholtz.
NHLN’s Jamie Hersch, Lauren Gardner, Jackie Redmond and Kendall Coyne Schofield will co-host the fourth annual all-female production.
Noted in a release from the NHL, the show in an “initiative by the NHL and NHLPA to celebrating diversity and inclusion in hockey, the show will feature women across the sport of hockey providing analysis on the top NHL storylines, in-depth previews of the six games featured that night, and interaction with viewers via NHL Network’s social media platforms.”
“We know that representation matters,” said Jamie Hersch. “If girls grow up seeing women talking about hockey, it becomes normal and they think, ‘I can do that someday, too.’ Whether it’s women or people of color, expanding the image of who boys, girls, women and men see as hockey broadcasters and analysts inherently helps to make our sport more inclusive,”
“My favorite part of this now annual tradition is that we approach it just like every other NHL Now,” said Jackie Redmon. “We’re still covering hockey. We just happen to all be women. I think it’s important that we treat it the same as we do every show, not like it’s some special occasion, because my hope is, that one day it won’t be.”
Lauren Jbara and Blake Bolden will also join the program, as well as four female correspondents who will provide reports ahead of particular games: Christine Simpson on Montreal-Vancouver, Sarah McLellan on Vegas-Minnesota, Sonia Tydingco on St. Louis-San Jose, and Lyndsey Fry on Arizona-Colorado, per the NHL.
“Fry’s inclusion is particularly notable; a former U.S. Olympian, she joined the Coyotes in January as a radio analyst, and on Monday night, she’ll be an analyst on their TV broadcast on Fox Sports Arizona.”
