U.S. women's hockey team's best performance came off the ice

When USA Hockey released its version of the financial terms during negotiations with the U.S. women’s team last week, star player Hilary Knight tweeted: “LOL".

Team captain Meghan Duggan told USA TODAY Sports she called 500 players and persuaded them to stand together and not to be replacement players.

It took 23 hockey players playing hardball to achieve a new measure of respect for the American women's team.

The U.S. women's national team was threatening to boycott the upcoming IIHF World Championship because it sought a fair wage and better support from USA Hockey.

Some will say this fight could have been avoided, but that may be untrue. How many times in sports history have we seen management give in to players without a rebellion?

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It's a negotiation war that must be fought, and the women were organized, unified and passionate enough to force in a change in perspective that could positively impact women’s hockey for years to come.

The core players on this American team have won six world championships out of the past seven, but their greatest performance for women’s hockey may have come in this negotiation. Anger has given way to the idea that the women’s game could grow if everyone was on the same page.

While USA Hockey gave better financial terms to the women than it desired, executive director Dave Ogrean told USA TODAY Sports that the result of these negotiations was “progress.”

“I think players are pleased because great progress was made,” Ogrean said. “Thanks to them, where we go from here, and what they have done for the next generation of players, is real progress for the sport.”

In some ways, the women were victims of their own success. Complacency often occurs amid success. It’s simpler to react to problems than anticipate them.

The U.S. women’s program has been successful since conception, and perhaps it was too easy to let momentum carry it forward without a constant reevaluation of what needs to be done to improve it or make sure that players are treated fairly.

Part of the settlement was the creation of a Women’s High Performance Group, which will include active and former U.S. national team players whose charge will be to assure there will be no complacency.

The money was paramount in this negotiate because players wanted to be able to earn enough to stay in the game through the primes of their career.

But the creation of this committee might be just as important in the long run.

It’s also a positive that USA Hockey was forced to reexamine where they are in women’s hockey and where they are going. This event could re-energize the American program, inspire it to reach greater heights.

“These are a lot of athletes that I’ve known for a long, long time some of whom I’ve been fairly close to and I think this was an uncomfortable process for a lot of us,” Ogrean said. “That’s one of the element that adds to our happiness that this is now behind us.”

The only leverage the American women had was to threaten a boycott. They parlayed that into a new four-year contract that will potentially pay them more than $100,000 in Olympic years and about $70,000 in non-Olympic years, according two people with knowledge of the agreement who are not authorized to release the numbers told USA TODAY Sports. That includes USOC training stipends and potential medal bonuses.

"I was prepared not to go to the worlds and the fact I might miss it sank in as the world championships got closer," Knight said. "This was going to be my ninth world championship, but I prepared to stick my heels in the ground and fight for what was needed."

She was not alone.

When the women started negotiations, they were earning $1,000 per month from USA Hockey for only the six months before each Olympics, plus the USOC stipends (up to $24,000 per year) and potential medal bonuses.

The American women made the right moves, said the right things and had the team chemistry to pull off the most important win of their careers.

Contributing: A.J. Perez