Tessa Bonhomme and Julia Tocheri leave TSN for PWHL: ‘This is the new dream job’

Tessa Bonhomme and Julia Tocheri have left TSN to work for the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

The PWHL announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the Jocks in Jills podcast, the women’s hockey podcast hosted by Bonhomme and Tocheri, as part of a new in-house media venture — the PWHL Media House — that aims to “expand the conversation and content around women’s hockey.”

Bonhomme and Tocheri launched the show during the PWHL’s inaugural season in January 2024, independent from their TSN duties. As part of the move to the PWHL, they will release two episodes each week — up from one last season — and will be creating content in each of the league’s six markets throughout the season.

“The only thing really in my career that I haven’t done is 100 percent cover a women’s hockey league,” Bonhomme, the Canadian Olympic gold medalist, told The Athletic. “I did not expect to be sitting here and saying that I was an employee at the PWHL, but the fact that it happened is the coolest, most full-circle moment in my professional career.”

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Bonhomme worked at TSN for a decade, joining the network after retiring from the Canadian national team in 2014. She appeared on Sportscentre, regional Montreal Canadiens broadcasts and several other shows across the network. Tocheri first joined TSN’s digital platform, BarDown, in 2021 before hosting Leafs Lunch on TSN radio and becoming a prominent member of the network’s Canadian junior hockey coverage.

“It probably feels a little bit crazy for me to leave TSN because I’ve only been there full-time for four years,” said Tocheri. “But this felt a little bit bigger than me, and I feel like it’s given me a little bit more of a sense of purpose than just getting up every day and grinding and wanting to be bigger in my career and grow my own brand. It’s a really powerful thing to get to be part of.”

Both Bonhomme and Tocheri were members of the broadcast team for TSN’s coverage of the IIHF women’s world championships and the Canada-USA Rivalry Series. While the network aired PWHL games last season, TSN did not produce its own broadcasts — opting instead to plug in the league’s production — until the playoffs. That meant fewer opportunities for Bonhomme and Tocheri to work in women’s hockey, save for international games or one-off projects directly with the league.

“I’ve played in past leagues that weren’t successful, so to watch this one finally come to be was very exciting and we very much wanted to have our hands all over it,” Bonhomme said. “Working at TSN, we were really excited to hopefully be involved with as much of the broadcasts and the games that we were putting on air as we could. Unfortunately for Julia and I, there wasn’t much available there for us.”

The duo launched the podcast as a way to stay involved in the women’s game and balanced the show with their full-time work with TSN. They hired an audio producer to help put the show together, but otherwise did the work themselves — lining up the show, booking guests and running the social media channels. Some weeks they couldn’t record until Bonhomme was done with late-night Sportscentre loops, around 2 in the morning.

“I’d be smacking myself on the face to stay awake until Tessa got home,” Tocheri said. “We just really wanted to make it work. I can’t honestly believe that it’s evolved into something that we can do all the time.”

The PWHL has yet to release its broadcast information for the 2024-25 season, but it’s fair to assume the broadcast duo will be utilized — at least in big moments — if the PWHL decides to produce its own broadcasts on YouTube again this season. “You will probably see and hear them in a number of different forums,” said Jayne Bussman-Wise, the PWHL’s vice president of growth, strategy and new ventures.

Investing in content to expand the conversation around women’s hockey is one of the keys to the league’s growth strategy. The PWHL Media House is still new, but Bussman-Wise said it could eventually be a place for voices in women’s hockey who don’t have a platform — or a traditional media outlet to work with — to share stories or create content. “There are underserved fans and underserved voices that we can tap into,” she said.

Acquiring Bonhomme and Tocheri’s podcast — and bringing them to the league full-time — to officially launch the new venture was an easy choice.

“They have a really good following of fans because they’re so authentic and funny and interesting … and I think they get the best out of our players,” Bussman-Wise said. “They’re just such a great addition to the league. It feels like it’s so natural to have them to work with us.”

That Bonhomme and Tocheri would leave TSN — one of Canada’s top television networks — to join the PWHL is significant for the league.

“As much as girls could dream about playing in the PWHL, which is a little bit more of a long shot than I think we give credit to on a day-to-day basis, it’s also a really viable dream that you could cover the league,” said Tocheri.

“We both had everyone’s dream jobs,” added Bonhomme. “This is the new dream job.”

(Photo: Amanda Lee Coffey / Courtesy of PWHL)