I’m told that Rebecca used to be the GM’s assistant, before she was ever the girlfriend and then wife of the owner. And well before she owned the team herself. She used to pick up coffee and dry-cleaning for the men who ran this place.

“When I was a little girl,” she says, “I learned that girls take dancing or art classes. I didn’t have any friends who ran track or played hockey. Not one. And I need you all to hear that messaging matters. Everyone in this room heard a different message. Someone gave you the idea that you could be an athlete—maybe your parents or your siblings or a teacher. Even if you had this fire burning inside you from an early age, somewhere, some person showed you what was possible.”

I feel a little teary all of a sudden, thinking of my dad tying my first pair of skates onto my three-year-old feet.

“Everyone in this room has risen to the top of his and her field. That is commendable. But I want to take a moment to illustrate that it means a different thing to be a Bruiser than to be a Bombshell. The salary cap this year for a men’s team is fifty-two million dollars. The salary cap in the women’s league is two hundred and seventy thousand.”

Someone whistles under his breath. And I see Anton wake up his phone beside me. He opens the calculator app and divides two hundred seventy thousand by twenty-three.

I already know the answer, because I worked this equation myself. It’s $11,739. That’s the average salary on my team. It works out to a few hundred dollars a week for the duration of the season.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers under his breath.

“Now, gentlemen. I will never tell you that you don’t deserve your fame and glory. You sweat for every new rung of this crazy ladder that you’ve climbed. Your achievement is not arbitrary. The reward, however, is. Some people in this room make six or seven million dollars a year. And some of them make eleven grand. Because that is how the screwy world we live in values your contributions.”

Rebecca pulls no punches. The room is so silent that I can hear my own heartbeat.

“Who gets to decide, though?” she asks. “It’s so arbitrary. Football, basketball, baseball, and hockey all do well on TV. Soccer is not a money sport in this country, but it is in most other parts of the world. I’m sure my husband could draw us up a multivariable equation that explains where the money comes from, and where it goes.”

I think I just fell a little in love with Rebecca Rowley Kattenberger.

“As much as I’d like to change the bare facts of the pay equality in hockey, I can’t. Not this year, anyway. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make a few changes and contributions.”

She paces at the front. “I’m not allowed to pay my female players amounts exceeding the salary cap. But there are a few benefits we’ve granted to all employees of Brooklyn Hockey LLC. And these benefits accrue to everyone who works here, because that means that it’s not a special stipend for the women. Number one: more amenities in the locker rooms. And healthy smoothies are now always available in the players’ lounge.”