Daniella Ponticelli’s Breakthrough Season

If you watched the inaugural 2024 season of the PWHL, you don’t need an introduction to play-by-play announcer Daniella Ponticelli. Not only did she call the historic first game in league history, but she also became a fan favorite in her own right as the voice of 30 total games broadcast live on YouTube in North America and on TSN in Canada.

Ponticelli arrived to the PWHL broadcast landscape via her travels through many other sports and a variety of roles in journalism, from morning news anchor to sideline announcing in the CFL, calling hockey games for USports, hosting a call-in show, and even working the camera on the sidelines during WHL games.

Ponticelli studied media and communications in Winnipeg, after moving to Canada from her hometown of Cape Town, South Africa at the age of 9.

Her natural curiosity and enthusiasm, as well as an ability to learn and adapt on the fly, have served Daniella well in the PWHL, where so many aspects of the league have developed quickly. Different arenas, new players, overtimes, comebacks, and surprises meshed perfectly with her history of movement from sport to sport and league to league, working with various analysts and broadcast teams.

Ponticelli mentioned that working with Cheryl Pounder on the first game was a special thrill.

“That was my very first call with Cheryl, the inaugural game. There were so many ‘pinch me’ moments. It was just so special to share it with her. I don’t know if that day would’ve been quite the same otherwise because she just had so much to bring to it.”

“And we have such great communication with our entire production team – there’s always room to grow, and that’s also part of our conversations: ‘How do we do this better?’ How do we make this more clear, adjust, take a little bit of feedback, work with it, and our teams have been absolutely great. (In Canada, Dome Productions handled the production workload).

She was witness to so many firsts and is grateful for the opportunity.

“It was a wild ride. I remember being quite nervous personally, but also knowing that it’s okay. It’s still hockey in the end. It was incredibly moving to see everybody, and it’s the crowd, it’s that energy you feel from the crowd when you know everyone’s having this moment and we’re having it together. And that’s really special.”

With PWHL management and behind-the-scenes staff moving at lightning speed to get games up and running by the start of the year, Ponticelli actually auditioned in November and was ready to go for the January 1st game.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I have that in my mind; it was a complete honor. It was incredibly nerve-wracking going through the holidays knowing, ‘this is actually going to happen.’”

One of the serendipities that led Ponticelli into the PWHL is that she made a move from Saskatchewan to the Toronto area for personal reasons, but also found there the opportunity to join the new league as a play-by-play announcer. As she puts it, “I’m still blown away by how it all came together. It’s one of those moments where preparation meets opportunity and it worked out well that I was already going to be [in Toronto].”

And she didn’t put aside other commitments. Ponticelli’s busy schedule this past season included calling action at the Women’s World Championships and the USports Championship.

“I love it," she insists. "It does seem very busy but I’ve been able to find a good groove with it. Before this, I was doing play-by-play as a side thing and you have to find room to research and learn names and get ready, so this has been an absolute treat.

“It’s not without its challenges, because it’s also learning a new lifestyle. And I had just moved and was still unpacking boxes! So it’s making sure that as soon as you’re done a game, it’s on to the next one. As much as I want to de-brief and recollect and think about that other game, who’s next?”

Her first TV hockey broadcast was in 2022 for a SJHL game in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, north of Regina, in the middle of winter, after driving six hours in a snowstorm. (She had done hockey on radio starting in October 2021).

She even did some camera work with the Regina Pats in the WHL: “It was corner cam, handheld, that was really fun; it was also, in your ear, ‘Hey, we’ve got to find some people for the kiss cam,’ or ‘hey, we need some fans dancing,’ so then you’d go and you’d try to find people. When you’re handheld, you have to walk around. It really opened my eyes and I’m always so grateful to everyone on our crews because everyone else is making it look so easy and effortless.”

Putting together a live broadcast, crafting the story of the game and the players, and understanding all sides of the game make Ponticelli unique among announcers.

“One of the things that scared me about play-by-play initially was the expectation to know all of this stuff and for so many games when I started (before the PWHL), all I concerned myself with was just calling the play. And working on radio as well, I learned quickly you have to talk about the puck before you talk about the player — you have to paint the picture of where the puck is in space on radio.

“Television does allow the room to have the conversation to hear from the color commentator, to open up and talk about the players, and so I’ve really started working that muscle the more I’ve done some TV broadcasts.”

Her early memories center around a desire to tell stories, which led her to study communications and media when she moved to Canada. She began reporting for newspapers, for the military, traveling and absorbing new experiences wherever she went. It was television broadcasting that brought her to Saskatchewan where she found the mix of skills that make her unique.

“I didn’t quite know what I wanted. I never felt truly satisfied, and then you start to question, ‘why?’ Is it the type of work you’re doing? I had a lot of questions going through my 20’s – discovering what is it that I like and what is it that I don’t like? But throughout it all, I stayed with news, not only as a broadcaster, but as a writer, and in every sphere as well, so digital, radio, television – but a little bit of a thread weaving through this was sports.

“What I started to realize was, I really like live sports. I like game day. I like being in the moment, I like what's developing within a game and the story that’s unfolding. But on I went, with more than 10 years in news, covering pretty much everything like most Canadian reporters do, and it was roller derby that was the big switch for me because I moved back to Saskatoon in 2016 and I found my community.

"I learned the sport and it was through learning it that I also started to announce it, first in-house and then doing streams. And then going to the United States and doing international broadcasts and streams and learning from them and going, ‘I really like this, this is fun, this is great.’"

Next, Ponticelli worked with the Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League, doing all sorts of behind-the-scenes work, in-game announcing, stories about the players and the team. She was hooked on this phenomenon of “game day.”

After the pandemic (when she went back to news), Ponticelli got the opportunity to call women’s hockey for an entire season in 2021-22 with the University of Saskatchewan through Pattison Media, the first-ever private broadcaster in North America to make that commitment. The team went to the nationals and ended up winning bronze.

Sounding very much like an athlete whose journey takes some unexpected twists and turns, some successes and unexpected opportunities as well as setbacks, Ponticelli laughed as she remembered the twists and turns.

"Just saying yes to as much as I possibly could meant great opportunities like the Para Hockey World Championship in Moose Jaw last year, which still might be one of my favorite events that I’ve ever been part of. So you just never know. It was always following what my passions were.”

Ponticelli is the first female to call a USports football game (on radio), and has broken ground in so many ways that the opportunity with the PWHL seems like a perfect fit.

Another important facet of her career has been handling criticism or feedback, especially as a female announcer in sports.

"We are always going to make mistakes, and one of the great things is I’ve been able to talk to phenomenal play-by-play announcers with storied careers and they say the same thing, 'you're going to make mistakes.'

"We're all in this together and when you’re a woman in this world, you’re often in spaces where you don’t feel welcome or things could be better, in the workplace or a personal dynamic. How you handle those situations and moving forward through that is not easy, but it’s also not impossible, and it’s also very rewarding, and at times, can be just this wonderful place that we find ourselves in.

Her best advice: “Just to do it. That’s the best way you can be if you’re trying to trudge forward into territory that has been untouched before. Just keep going. And I’m very lucky, I’m inspired by all of the women on the ice, all of the women behind the scenes. They’re doing it, they’re constantly showing up and breaking new ground so when you're surrounded by that it's easy to keep looking forward and to stay grounded. It’s not easy, but it’s also so worth it."

She mentioned the groundbreaking efforts of now seeing all-female broadcast teams in sports, and how it flies in the face of sexist myths that limited opportunities before..

“I’m a big fan of challenging your assumptions about things, like, what makes a female play-by-play voice harder to listen to? It’s purely because you haven’t heard it before because that hasn’t been the soundtrack until this point."

As Daniella Ponticelli's voice becomes more familiar to hockey fans of all ages, genders, nationalities, and experiences, she will remain comfortably at the forefront of the firsts that the PWHL continues to establish.

"There will still be more adversity when it comes to breaking ground in [broadcasting and women’s sports] but I like to look for the light when it comes to that. Don't look for the doors shutting, look at what’s there and how we’re moving forward.”

To watch the entire interview, click here .