The Ice Garden Acquired by The IX Sports

We're thrilled to announce the acquisition of The Ice Garden by The IX Sports. The exciting news was officially broken on Sportico this morning; read more about it here.

In its own words, The IX Sports, through the crucial support of founder & editor Howard Megal, represents "a new era in media, where women's sports are always the headline... This platform is built to empower and amplify women’s sports, providing a voice for the athletes, teams, and leagues who deserve to be heard, through a trusted, independent lens."

How did it happen? What does it all mean? What comes next?

I spoke with The Ice Garden's Mike Murphy, who led the TIG-side part of the acquistion deal, about today's announcement. Murphy is editor-in-chief of The Ice Garden, previous owner of the site, and a longtime champion of women's hockey. In addition to the below, check out today's issue of The IX's Hockey Friday for more of our conversation.

MB: Before we talk about this exciting news, let's set the groundwork. How did The Ice Garden get to be where it is today?

Mike Murphy: The Ice Garden began with Stephanie Driver, who's always been a big ally of the site. She believed in women's hockey. When the NWHL gained momentum after that first season, she wanted to create something & she recruited Hannah to be the site manager.

At first... It was a very Wild West kind of community. How do we cover this entire sport? Russia, Sweden, Division III hockey, U Sports. It was so exciting, because we all got to interact with peers and share our passion and develop together. It really became a place where I was able to— I was so familiar with SB Nation and worked in the system, so I was able to kind of cut out a niche for myself. I quickly leaned into becoming someone who uses data to tell stories. That's something I got comfortable with in men's hockey. That was a big deal in women's hockey. There just wasn't a lot of data out there.

I began as a staff writer. After a little while, Hannah moved on when she had an opportunity to work for the AHL. I was considering stepping into that role, but I felt more comfortable kind of sharing those duties, but we just wanted one site manager, and that was Michelle. I became the deputy manager, and I was really comfortable being the go-to guy and the person who was responsible for a lot of volume and kind of leading the coverage.

Then Michelle Jay got a job with the Boston Pride, and there was a void. I didn't really want to be the boss, but we looked around, and it was like, well, it should probably be Mike. So I said yes. I felt like it should be someone who isn't a [cisgender] man running the women's hockey site, but it fell to me. In a very brief amount of time, Vox and SB Nation pulled its financial support and backing from [a number of] sites. [We] were cut loose, and very quickly, I had to go from an unconfident site manager to, oh God, this thing is all on me now. If this collapses, it's on me. And it was terrifying. Those were really, really difficult times for me.

I sought advice from everyone, and some really wonderful people reached out. And I said, eh, you know what... let's do it. What does it look like to go independent? I talked to Zoë Hayden [from The Victory Press] and Howard Megdal and they offered tremendous advice. I talked to some close family friends, and they walked me through building a business and doing all these things.

I made the business, set up a GoFundMe, did the math to pay everyone at least what staff was making before. I made a rule that everyone had to be paid, because that's a good rule to have. We needed to raise $10,000 to operate for a year. On the GoFundMe, I think we hit $14,000, and it was jaw-dropping.

When the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) folded, Michelle became a free agent again, so naturally, I begged her to come back. Alexa Goldman is our site manager. The Goldman family has done countless things to help TIG. And that little trio, we really made it work. And even though I was the owner and the site manager, it was completely a case of just having really brilliant, wonderful people — women — around me who wanted to help and saw an opportunity to take my passion and help turn it into something.

MB: You mentioned that Howard Megdal was one of the people who gave you advice when The Ice Garden first went independent. Now, Howard's The IX Sports has acquired the site. How did this come about?

Mike Murphy: [Howard and I] built a rapport as I was trying to figure out how to do this, because in many ways I feel like it translates well to where women's basketball is right now, versus where women's hockey is right now. If you turn back the clock and look at the origins of pro women's basketball and media coverage, I would argue it's broader and deeper than women's hockey, and that's because the history is there. Howard was a couple years ahead of us in a way, and he had gone through all the things we were going through, and he had figured a lot of it out through a lot of hard work and anguish and lessons learned and all those things, and he chose to just share that stuff.

He has a very similar philosophy to me, which is holding the door open for the next person. The way I like to put it into words is, if you find your way towards a solution, why would you not make the road easier for the next person? It doesn't have to be as hard. So many things in life are hard. Even with some help, it still could be hard.

Eventually, Michelle, Howard, and I had a couple of strategy talks, and it came up like, is owning The Ice Garden important to you? I thought about that long and hard. It became my baby... it became my whole life. Owning it isn't important, but I did some soul searching and I said, what is actually important? The opportunities I can give my staff. My mental health is also important.

What is The Ice Garden? Is it the name? Is it the website? Or is it the people, the reputation we've all built? It's the latter. It's not the little paperwork or the taxes we fill out. [Ownership is] not the most important thing.

We began to talk about what we could do for each other, and Howard proposed bringing us into what he has been building at The Next, and a lot of things just began to make a lot of sense. It's an infusion of resources, and it's a little less pressure on me to be a business owner. I can be the editor-in-chief and do the stuff that I actually love, but not the stuff that I have to do to make sure the lights stay on and everyone gets paid. My job now is just content. It's not making decisions about everything all the time.

MB: For our readers, what can they expect from the next chapter of The Ice Garden?

Mike Murphy: The way I described it to [the staff] was, we've been running really hard on a small car battery, and we've been chugging along and doing our thing and kicking butt. But we have an opportunity to plug into something, a bigger and stronger source of power, and that will result in everyone being lifted up. More eyeballs will see everyone's work. More opportunities will come from that.

I feel like I made the right choice for my team and the right choice for me, and I'm really optimistic about the next chapter for The Ice Garden and women's hockey coverage.