Cross Check

Amelia Green’s journey as the first female assistant and later head coach in the National Hockey League directly mirrors the real-world experiences of women who have broken similar barriers in male-dominated professional sports. On October 8, 2024, Jessica Campbell became the first woman to coach in a regular season NHL game as an assistant coach for the Seattle Kracken against the St. Louis Blues. Campbell previously played at Cornell University and in professional leagues and coached in Europe before getting hired as “an assistant in Coachella Valley, Seattle’s affiliate in the American Hockey League” where she was also “the first woman to coach in AHL history” (Roarke, Shawn. “Campbell Becomes 1St Woman to Coach in NHL, Named Kraken Assistant.” NHL.com, 2024). Female coaches like Campbell face significant systemic barriers within the NHL, which has been slower than other professional sports like the NBA to hire women in coaching roles. NHL hiring networks rely heavily on former male players and traditional coaching circles who frequently hire men they already know or have played with in the past. As a result, female candidates often face higher scrutiny as well as institutionalized and interpersonal sexism, requiring them to prove their competence repeatedly above and beyond what is required of their male counterparts.

Several prominent advocacy organizations focus on breaking down systemic barriers and increasing the representation of women coaching in sports, which directly influences and supports the pipeline for women coaching male professional sports teams. For example, The Women's Coaching Alliance, which is backed by professional male and female sports organizations, including the NFL Foundation, Golden State Warriors, and San Francisco Giants, works toward greater equality by building the foundation for young women to enter coaching. Founded in 2011, WeCOACH is a prominent nonprofit explicitly dedicated to the recruitment, advancement, and retention of women coaches across all sports.

In her author’s note, Curto explicitly names Becky Hammon as a trailblazer whose career influenced the novel. A six-time WNBA All-Star point guard who spent 16 seasons as a professional player, Hammon was hired by the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs in August 2014, becoming the first female full-time paid assistant coach in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues. Working under head coach Gregg Popovich, she went on to become the first woman to serve as a head coach in the NBA Summer League, leading the Spurs to the Las Vegas Summer League championship in 2015. She was also the first woman to serve as acting head coach during a regular-season NBA game on December 30, 2020, when Popovich was ejected against the Los Angeles Lakers. In 2022, she left the Spurs to become head coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, whom she led to back-to-back championships. This real-world parallel provides a tangible framework for understanding the magnitude of Amelia’s accomplishments and the scrutiny she faces in Curto’s fictional context.

Cross Check also alludes to earlier pioneers like Lisa Boyer, a longtime women’s college basketball coach who in the 2001-2002 season joined Head Coach John Lucas’s staff with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Though widely recognized as the first woman to coach in an NBA game, Boyer held the role on a volunteer, unpaid basis and was not listed on the official team roster, a technicality allowed Hammon to be named as the first “official” female coach despite fulfilling the role after Boyer. Boyer’s situation highlights the long and often unheralded struggle for recognition that preceded Hammon’s full-time role. Amelia confronts similar obstacles, from a date who claims women are hired merely to fill a “quota” to reporters questioning her emotional capacity to lead a men’s team. These fictionalized struggles reflect the genuine biases and systemic hurdles faced by female coaches, who often report needing to constantly justify their qualifications in ways their male counterparts do not. This context enriches the reader’s appreciation of Amelia’s resilience and the authenticity of her professional journey.