Kaleigh Fratkin

Kaleigh Fratkin (born March 24, 1992) is a Canadian women's ice hockey player with the Boston Pride of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL). The third-longest tenured player and leading scorer among defenders in NWHL history, she was the first Canadian player to sign a contract in the league, is a three-time NWHL all-star, and was named NWHL Defender of the Year in 2020. Previous to the joining the NWHL, she won the Clarkson Cup in 2015 and was the first girl to play boys' midget AAA hockey in British Columbia.[1]

Kaleigh Fratkin
Kaleigh Fratkin at the 2020 NWHL All Star Game in Boston
Born (1992-03-24) March 24, 1992
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Height 5 ft 8 in (173 cm)
Weight 154 lb (70 kg; 11 st 0 lb)
Position Defence
Shoots Right
NWHL team
Former teams		 Boston Pride
National team  Canada
Playing career 2014–present
Medal record
Women's ice hockey
Representing  Canada
Nations Cup
2015 Germany Tournament
Women's ice hockey
Representing  Canada
U18 IIHF World Championship
2009 Germany Tournament

Playing career

Early career

During high school, she played for the Vancouver NW Giants of the boys' BC Hockey U18 AAA league, the first girl in history to play on a British Columbian midget major boys' league, playing alongside future NHLers Sam Reinhart and Alexander Kerfoot. She finished third in scoring among her team's defenders during the 2009–10 season, despite missing fifteen games with an injury.[2] That year, the Giants won a provincial championship, and Fratkin was named a finalist for the BC Athlete of the Year award. She would also make a handful of appearances for the Aldergrove Kodiaks in the boys' Pacific Junior Hockey League.

From 2010 to 2014, she played for the Boston University Terriers women's ice hockey, accumulating a total of 66 points across 151 NCAA games. She scored 10 points in 38 games in her rookie collegiate season, notching her first goal on the 11th of February 2011 against Northeastern University. She broke out in the 2012–13 season, almost doubling her point production up to 17 points in 37 games, and picking up points in seven of the last eight games of the year. She was named an assistant captain for the team ahead of senior year, where she would go on to score a career-best 30 points in 38 games, being named a 2013–14 New England Division I All-Star and Hockey East First-Team All-Star.[3]

CWHL

Fratkin was selected 20th overall, in the 5th round, by the Boston Blades in the 2014 CWHL Draft. After graduating from Boston University, she signed her first professional contract with the Blades. She put up eight points in 22 games in her rookie Canadian Women's Hockey League season, competing in all postseason games as the Blades captured the 2015 Clarkson Cup.[4]

NWHL

After the end of the 2014-15 CWHL season, despite having just won the Clarkson Cup, Fratkin was cut from the Canadian national team development squad. The blow of the announcement, combined with the financial insecurity that came with playing as a non-national team player in the CWHL, originally pushed her into considering retirement.[5]

However, when the National Women's Hockey League was founded that summer by Dani Rylan as the first women's hockey league to offer all players a salary, she decided to take a chance and sign with the Connecticut Whale. She was the first Canadian player to sign a contract in the new league and would be the highest paid Canadian in the league that year, with a $20,000 salary. She was named the assistant captain for the team ahead of the league's inaugural season.[6] On December 31, she was one of three Connecticut Whale players (including Kate Buesser and Shannon Doyle) who were loaned to the Boston Pride for one day to participate in the 2016 Outdoor Women's Classic against the CWHL's Les Canadiennes de Montréal, the first outdoor professional women's hockey game.[7][8] She finished the year with 17 points in 18 games, leading all NWHL defenders in points and being named to the 1st NWHL All-Star Game, which took place on January 24, 2016, at the Harbor Center in Buffalo, New York.[9][10]

In April 2016, she left Connecticut to sign with the New York Riveters.[11][12] She was named to the NWHL All-Star Game for the second year in a row, however, her production dropped significantly during the season, receiving much more limited power-play time and occasionally even being used as a third-line forward by Riveters head coach Chad Wiseman.

Ahead of the 2017–18 NWHL season, Fratkin joined the Boston Pride, the third team in her NWHL career.

After the collapse of the Canadian Women's Hockey League in May 2019, Fratkin became the first player to re-sign with an NWHL team for the 2019–20 NWHL season, and became one of the first players to publicly criticise the newly forming Professional Women's Hockey Players Association, stating that:

"At the beginning, when I was approached about if I was going to join the movement or not and [asked] about my stance I had a ton of questions. I asked for follow-up, I asked when I would be getting those answers, and I never got them. I know that the [PHWPA] has had multiple phone calls and none of them have been directly sent to me...

I want to know if we’re ultimately doing this for the salary, better resources, and to make it more sustainable, what does that look like? You know, do we have a [plan] that’s already solidified? If there was something legitimate there, if there was some sort of contractual agreement that said, ‘Hey, this is the money that you’re going to be making, these are where the teams will be, this is what it’s going to look like,’ then I would be looking at it a little bit differently."[13]

During the 2019–20 season, her third season with the Boston Pride and her first serving as an assistant captain for the team, Fratkin notched a career-high 23 points in 24 games, helping the Pride finish the season almost undefeated and making the Isobel Cup finals before the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. That year, she was named NWHL Defender of the Year.[14] She was also named to Team Packer for the 2020 NWHL All-Star Game, her third consecutive all-star game appearance. At the All-Star Game, she won the hardest shot competition with a winning shot of 76 miles per hour.[15]

She re-signed with the Pride for the 2020–21 NWHL season, returning as an assistant captain for the team.[16]

International career

Fratkin represented Canada at the 2009 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship, scoring four points in five games as the country won silver. She attended the Team Canada U18 development camp each year from 2006 to 2009, twice participating in the U18 Summer Series against the United States. With Canada's U22 Development Team, she earned a gold medal at the 2015 Nations Cup in Germany.

She was named to the Canadian senior national team roster for the 2014 Fall Festival and to the 2015 pre-World Championship training camp roster, but was ultimately cut from the team before the 2015 IIHF Women's World Championship.[17][18]

Style of play

One of eight original NWHLers still active in the league and a fixture on the top defensive pairing for the Boston Pride, Fratkin has been most often been described as an offensive defender with elite playmaking skills.[19][20] She has stated that "What I've noticed from college to turning pro is that defensemen being very offensive is extremely helpful to the NWHL style of play."[21] She also been noted for the strength of her shot, her physicality, currently holding the NWHL's record for career penalty minutes, as well as her ironman streak, having only missed five games since the start of her professional career.[22]

She has worn the number 13 on her jersey since her days in youth hockey, picking the number after being advised by her father to chose one that nobody else wanted.[23]

Personal life

Fratkin was born and raised in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and is Jewish.[24][10][25] Her parents are Ron and Marilyn Fratkin, and she has two brothers, Jesse (who played on the Brown University men's ice hockey team and on the Stockton Thunder of the ECHL) and Casey (who played on the Elmira College and Wesleyan University men's ice hockey teams).[26][27][28] She attended Burnaby Central High School, where she also played lacrosse and soccer, winning provincial championships in both sports.[26]

She obtained her bachelor's degree from the Boston University College of Communication, and her master's degree in sports leadership from Northeastern University. During the 2015–16 season, she served as an analytics intern with the New York Islanders.[29]

Career statistics
    Regular Season   Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
2014–15Boston BladesCWHL 2217810 30114
2015–16Connecticut WhaleNWHL 185121740 30116
2016–17New York RivetersNWHL 1815620 10000
2017–18Boston PrideNWHL 1105520 10002
2018–19Boston PrideNWHL 1627926 10002
2019–20Boston PrideNWHL 243202338 11230
CWHL totals 2217810 30114
NWHL totals 87114960114 713410

See also

References
  1. "Whale signs Kaleigh Fratkin, First Canadian in the NWHL". NWHL.co. 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  2. "Not just one of the boys". The Daily Free Press. 2011-03-01. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  3. "Kaleigh Fratkin, Career Stats". USCHO.com. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  4. "Kaleigh Fratkin, Boston Blades". cwhl.com. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  5. Coghe, Yuri (2020-07-04). "A phone call that changed the course for NWHL star from Burnaby". The Toronto Observer. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  6. Nelson, Dustin (November 14, 2015). "New York Riveters, Connecticut Whale Name Captains". thehockeywriters.com. Retrieved October 16, 2018.
  7. "Three Whale Players to participate in historic womans game at Winter Classic". collinsvillepress.com. 2015-12-28. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  8. "Women's hockey happy for Winter Classic showcase". nhl.com. 2016-01-01. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  9. "NWHL All-Star Draft Recap". NWHL.co. 2015-12-11. Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  10. Kaleigh Fratkin - Eliteprospects.com
  11. "Fratkin and Leonoff Join New York Roster".
  12. Kaitlin Cimini. "Kaleigh Fratkin Talks Joining The New York Riveters – TSS". Todays SlapShot.
  13. Murphy, Mike (2019-04-24). "Kaleigh Fratkin on the #ForTheGame movement, the PWHPA, and her decision to return to the NWHL". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  14. "Kaleigh Fratkin of the Boston Pride Named NWHL's Defender of the Year". NWHL Media.
  15. Greg Levinsky. "NWHL All-Stars play to sold-out arena". Boston Globe.
  16. Rice, Dan (2020-07-10). "Kaleigh Fratkin: NWHL Pillar and Trailblazer". The Hockey Writers. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  17. Shulman, Michael (2016-03-08). "Playing at even strength: NWHL's quest for respect, fair wages". CTV News. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  18. Larsen, Karin (2016-03-28). "B.C. shut out of Team Canada again as Women's World Championship opens in Kamloops". CBC Sports. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  19. Staffieri, Mark (2016-12-21). "Kaleigh Fratkin Embodies Essence of Teamwork with New York Riveters". Women's Hockey Life. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  20. Bryant, Casey (2020-09-21). "All-Time Starting Lineup: Connecticut Whale". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  21. Murphy, Mike (2019-05-26). "Fratkin ready for another year on the power play with the Pride". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  22. Ingemi, Marisa (2020-09-11). "Kaleigh Fratkin finding ways to better her game". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  23. Jay, Michelle (2020-12-13). "Question Jenga with Mallory Souliotis, Kaleigh Fratkin". The Ice Garden.
  24. Meet Canada’s highest-paid female hockey player
  25. "Sports Shorts," Jewish Sports Review, March/April 2018, Vol 11, No. 6, Issue 126, p. 21.
  26. GoTerriers.com | The Official Site of Boston University Athletics
  29. Press Release (8 August 2018). "Kaleigh Fratkin Returns for Fourth NWHL Season, Second with the Boston Pride". NWHL. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
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