Hockey writer Karissa Donkin's book, Breakaway, details the inaugural season of the PWHL in 2024 and explores the rich history of women in the game.Photography by Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
Karissa Donkin grew up in Saint John raised by a single mother. They lived in public housing and had no car.
She would have loved to play hockey as she grew up, but the rinks were too far away for her to walk. Money was also tight, and hockey gear was too expensive.
“It just wasn’t feasible,” Donkin said.
She was introduced to the sport by her late grandfather, Papa Jack Donkin. She would read his hockey books, all of which were written about men by male authors. They would also read the sports pages together and, on Saturday nights, would settle in and watch Hockey Night in Canada.
She didn’t even know that women played hockey until she caught games on television during the 2002 Olympics. That year, Canada’s women won their first gold medal. The squad had a coterie of stars that included Jennifer Botterill, Cassie Campbell, Jayna Hefford, Danielle Goyette and Hayley Wickenheiser.
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Flash forward nearly 25 years and Donkin has written a book about women’s hockey called Breakaway. It details the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League in 2024 and explores the rich history of women in the game, starting with Lady Isobel Stanley who in the 1890s would play on the Rideau Canal with friends.
The Stanley Cup was named after her father, Lord Stanley.
“My No. 1 goal was to follow the PWHL’s first season almost in documentary style,” Donkin said this week. “The second goal was to explain how we got here. I wanted to provide historical context but also have it be forward thinking.
“The more research I did, I felt this needed to be done.”
Donkin started to work on the book during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The league expanded from six teams to eight this year. The regular season begins Friday night when the Toronto Sceptres visit the defending champion Minnesota Frost and the league’s two new expansion teams, the Seattle Torrent and Vancouver Goldeneyes, battle in Vancouver.
An investigative journalist for CBC based in Atlantic Canada and a hockey writer for CBC Sports, she started to work on the book during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I needed something to do with myself,” she said.
For the first year and a half to two years, she had no publisher.
“Essentially I was trying to sell a book about a league that didn’t exist yet,” Donkin said. “It really has been a labour of love. It can be a lonely pursuit, but I really felt it deserved to be out there.”
Eventually she signed on with Goose Lane Editions, a boutique publisher in Fredericton, N.B. The 244-page volume is $26 through Goose Lane, and is also being sold in book stores and by online booksellers.
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Much of the work was done on her own dime and own time. She mostly travelled to PWHL cities by driving and stayed in Airbnbs along the way.
“I wanted to be around as much as possible,” Donkin said.
That shows through in her work. Breakaway is a gem that is full of anecdotes about key figures around the league, including Billie Jean King and pro players, including Erin Ambrose, Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey and many others.
It is heavy on details and rife with human emotion. It tells the tale of hundreds of women who played hockey for years because they loved it, even when hockey didn’t love them back.
Donkin's book documents the sacrifices PWHL players made, such as playing for little or no pay, mostly in tiny community rinks where they had to lug their own gear.
It documents the sacrifices they made – playing for little or no pay, mostly in tiny community rinks where they had to lug their own gear and do without any of the perks that NHL players enjoy.
Many players have worked second jobs to make ends meet. Liz Knox, a retired Canadian goalie, toiled from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. lugging shingles around roofs. Catherine Dubois, a Canadian forward who plays now for the Montreal Victoire, worked for her family’s masonry business. Her job was to haul heavy cement bricks on her back up and down ladders all day.
There are stories about players’ surviving collapsed leagues, mental-health struggles, issues from coping with their sexual orientation, and at least one broken and lost Olympic silver medal.
“I really wanted to write this book,” Donkin said. “The more research I did, the more I felt it needed to be done. There was so much to put in.
“There is so much history and there were so many leagues. I wanted to include as much as I could but you have to stop somewhere.”
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She travelled to Vancouver this week and will be attending the contest between the league’s two expansion teams, the home team Goldeneyes and the Seattle Torrent.
In her office in Fredericton, she has a poster of the 2002 Canadian women’s team beside a stick that the Saint John Flames signed when Papa Jack was sick. He would take her to the games of the Flames’ AHL affiliate. There is also a framed photo from the 2001 Calder Cup celebration in Saint John.
She plays hockey one night a week with a women’s team in Fredericton called the Valkyries who scrimmage against each other and occasionally play in local tournaments.
“I’m a forward by default,” Donkin said. “I can’t skate backwards.”