How a Chicago-area Olympian and a tennis legend helped build the PWHL

When players skated out for the first pregame warmups of the Professional Women's Hockey League on New Year's Day, the song playing through Toronto's old Maple Leaf Gardens, now the Mattamy Athletic Centre, carried a pointed line: "'Cause girls is players too." A sellout crowd of 2,537 watched the league's debut in a building opened in 1931 as the home of the NHL's Maple Leafs.

For decades, a stable professional league for women seemed out of reach. The Canadian Women's Hockey League and the Premier Hockey Federation, formerly the National Women's Hockey League and bought by the PWHL in 2023, were among several circuits that eventually folded.

Olympic gold medalist Kendall Coyne Schofield, a Palos Heights native, told the Tribune the effort began with a phone call in March 2019 to tennis figures Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss. "Women's hockey needs to be better," she said of the message. She pointed to the equal treatment of men and women in tennis as the reason the two were first on her list. Former U.S. national team teammate Angela Ruggiero, a Hockey Hall of Famer, supplied their contact information.

Coyne Schofield and other players who chose not to play in the PHF formed the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association. They said they were tired of salaries of a couple thousand dollars, air mattresses, missing meals and second jobs. Some players worked as nannies, coaches or account managers and fit hockey around those jobs. "We were professional by name only because we weren't treated as professionals," Coyne Schofield said.

The association had 200 players in 2019 and ran showcase events to stay visible. Jayna Hefford, its chairperson and now senior vice president of PWHL hockey operations, said the group first hoped the NHL or another party would lead the effort. After about two years, it decided to do the work itself. It then consulted Deloitte's Canadian sport practice on a business plan, and in 2022 secured an investor in Mark Walter, part-owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a co-owner of Chelsea FC. The Mark Walter Group owns the league and all six of its teams: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Boston, Minnesota and New York.

A distinguishing feature is that a collective bargaining agreement was in place before any game was played. Running through July 31, 2031, it sets a $35,000 league-minimum salary and a $55,000 average base salary, and covers bonuses and meals. It also lets eligible pregnant players keep their base salary and benefits. Coyne Schofield said players studied the WNBA, the NWSL and the U.S. women's national soccer team during negotiations. Hefford said she was unsure any other league, men's or women's, had launched with such an agreement already signed.

Coyne Schofield said ownership did not resist spending. When general managers asked for a third reserve player because of the physical style of play, the Walter Group "didn't balk at it," she said.

The league announced its formation June 30 and had six months before its first season. Coyne Schofield was among the first 18 players signed, agreeing to a three-year deal with Minnesota. Sophie Jaques, the 2023 Patty Kazmaier Award winner, went No. 10 in the September draft to Boston and was traded to Minnesota on Feb. 11 for forward Susanna Tapani and defender Abby Cook. Jaques said she never imagined a professional career until recently. "For little girls to have female role models they can look up to and be able to dream to play professional hockey is just so incredible," she said.

Interest has been strong. The opening game, streamed on YouTube, drew 163,000 viewers, and on Feb. 16 a record 19,285 fans attended the Montreal-Toronto game at Scotiabank Arena, the largest recorded crowd for a women's hockey game. Hefford said Chicago is high on the league's list for expansion, citing Walter's ties to the area, though the league first has to strengthen its original six markets. All 72 regular-season games can be streamed on YouTube.

Coyne Schofield, 31, has four goals and two assists through Minnesota's first 12 games. "I have been on this journey to help leave this game a better place than when I entered it," she said, "because it has been very hard."