Driving Ability On and Off the Ice with Connecticut Whale
Posted on by Isabelle Brown
At Rideshare, our partnerships allow our mission to reach new people in ways that enrich the work we do. Our most recent partnership venture has been with Connecticut’s women’s professional hockey team, CT Whale, and it has already proven worthwhile.
In the early discussions of how our two organizations could align, we had tons of ideas. The relationship that was meant to happen fell into place when we learned more about the disadvantages that many women’s and girl’s hockey teams face compared to men’s and boy’s teams.
Stories were shared with us of how youth girl’s teams often have to change in bathroom stalls instead of locker rooms and take yellow school buses on trips while youth boy’s teams would load onto coach buses. We also learned that CT Whale, within the Premier Hockey Federation, did not even have access to an equipment van for the team’s belongings, a mainstream benefit within the NHL. This was the Eureka! moment for our partnership.
As an organization run by a woman CEO, Nanci Fitzgerald, with many incredible women making up our team at Rideshare, we knew fitting into a solution for this team made perfect sense for us—Especially when we learned that we could do so by providing a vehicle for them to begin to break down the barrier of disadvantages for women’s sports.
As a way to “Drive Ability On and Off the Ice,” we partnered with the team to provide them with an equipment van so that no CT Whale player would have to personally lug their heavy equipment to and from away games.
Another incredible part of our partnership was the opportunity to invite some of our clients and friends to a CT Whale game on Sunday, February 19th where we were treated like VIPs for the day! In our very own VIP Suite above the ice, we watched the Whale win against the Toronto Six and in hopes to move forward of securing a spot in the playoffs. (Spoiler alert: They did!)
The staff and team were nothing but gracious and overjoyed to welcome us to the rink, and even let us on the ice to get a photo with the team after their much-deserved victory.
We are so excited to see what we can do next to continue our work with Connecticut Whale, as both of our organization’s proceed to Drive Ability On and Off the Ice!