'We all want the same thing': PHF, PWHPA still split in crucial year for women's hockey
CBC
Thanks to the Premier Hockey Federation's (PHF) doubled salary cap, the league's MVP was finally able to afford her dream car: a Jeep Wrangler.
"It's a 2020 [model]. I couldn't splurge out for the 2021," said Toronto Six forward Mikyla Grant-Mentis.
"Even though we're not even making millions or anything, like we're making the bare minimum to play hockey, I was still able to get what I want because of that doubled salary cap. If we had the same amount as last year, I definitely wouldn't be able to do the things that I wanted to do."
The increase in player pay for the 2021-22 season amounts to a jump in average salary to $15,000 US. Grant-Mentis' salary is not publicly known.
Still, the 23-year-old from Brampton, Ont., led the league in regular-season scoring with nine points in six games, earning newcomer of the year honours in addition to MVP.
Her second season looks mightily different than her first: a full regular season played in different cities; national broadcasts on ESPN+ in the U.S. and TSN in Canada; permanent dressing rooms.
That last point might help Grant-Mentis save on potential car cleaning.
"To be able to leave your hockey bag at a rink I think is the biggest pleasure ever. You don't have to carry it in and out. You don't have to air out your stinky hockey bag at home," she said.
When she's not taking her Jeep to the rink, Grant-Mentis works a second job as a FedEx driver.
It's part and parcel of playing professional women's hockey in 2021, when the sport is — quite literally — all over the place. There's the six-team PHF, which includes five American outposts in addition to Toronto. Then there's the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association (PWHPA), which recently hosted a tournament in Nova Scotia and would normally include North America's top players, except they're centralized with their respective national teams (Canada recently completed a three-game set in Finland) ahead of the Beijing Olympics in February.
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In an Olympic year, the disarray is only amplified as the game attempts to capitalize on its upcoming attention boom.
The solution seems obvious. The PHF has the infrastructure; the PWHPA has the talent. Each side has corporate investment — the PWHPA recently launched a temporary monument sponsored by Budweiser across from Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame to shed light on the women's game.
The PHF is in its seventh season. The PWHPA was formed in the aftermath of the Canadian Women's Hockey League's collapse in 2019.
