The Premier Hockey Federation announced a $25 million investment in January, which dropped the puck on a roller-coaster year for the women’s professional league.

While the Boston Pride were busy winning their third Isobel Cup, the league and its players association saw key departures, and competitor PWHPA is planning to form its own league in 2023.

Just Women’s Sports has brought all of the PHF’s news from 2022 together in one place to help you keep track as the league presses forward.

Tuesday, May 10 — Metropolitan Riveters announce signing of Olympic gold medalist Amanda Pelkey

On Tuesday, the Riveters announced the signing of Amanda Pelkey, a 2018 Olympic gold medalist with Team USA, to a one-year contract.

Pelkey had previously spent time with the Boston Pride before leaving the PHF — then the NWHL — in 2019 for the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association. Through 49 career NWHL games, she tallied 33 points (15 goals, 18 assists) and won an Isobel Cup championship in her rookie year.

Monday, May 9 — Metropolitan Riveters name Venla Hovi as new head coach, Mikyla Grant-Mentis signs largest contract in PHF history

Former Finnish Olympian and Canadian Women’s Hockey League pro Venla Hovi was named head coach of the Metropolitan Riveters on Monday. She is the first European woman to serve as head coach of a PHF/NWHL franchise and the first woman head coach of the Riveters.

The news came as the team also announced that it had re-signed captain Madison Packer through the 2023-24 season.

Mikyla Grant-Mentis made headlines when it was announced that she would be returning to Buffalo on the biggest contract in PHF history. Grant-Mentis’ deal is worth $80,000.

Wednesday, May 4 — Melody Davidson named director of league and hockey operations

Melody Davidson, who helped lead Team Canada to four straight Winter Olympic gold medals as coach and general manager, was named the director of league and hockey operations.

Davidson will assist in operations and provide insight on the structure of the league and its regular season, playoffs and offseason.

Tuesday, April 26 – PHF announces Reagan Carey as new commissioner

Reagan Carey, former USA Hockey director of women’s ice hockey, has been named the new commissioner of the Premier Hockey Federation, the league announced Tuesday.

Serving in her position with USA Hockey from 2010 to 2018, the women’s national team took home silver at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and gold at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang during Carey’s tenure.

Carey officially will start as the PHF’s third commissioner on May 10.

Wednesday, April 20 – PHF forgoes draft, announces new free agency format

The PHF announced that in lieu of an entry draft, all eligible athletes will become available for free agency.

PHF teams reserve the right to re-sign any rostered players from the 2021-22 season up until April 30. Unrestricted free agency will begin on May 1.

With the salary cap set at $750,000 for each team, the floor will sit at $562,500, or 75 percent of the cap. For the first time in league history, players can sign two-year deals with teams and can receive signing bonuses.

Saturday, April 16 – PWHPA to form new, six-team league

The PWHPA is planning to form a six-team league featuring 23-player rosters, Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek reported. Players in the new league will have a base salary of $35,000, and the average salary will be $55,000 plus bonuses, per Marek. The inaugural season is slated to include 32 games and will run from January to April 2023.

Tuesday, April 13 – Anya Packer announces departure as Riveters general manager

Metropolitan Riveters general manager Anya Packer announced that she declined to renew her contract with the team.

Packer, who is married to Riveters captain Madison Packer, did not tie her departure to new president Digit Murphy’s arrival. But several other front office employees – including public relations staffers and the entire stats team – have reportedly departed the organization in the wake of Murphy’s appointment, according to The IX’s Anne Tokarski.

“Her coming aboard really really really made it hard to even think of staying,” former head of PR Jess Belmosto told The IX. “It made me sick even thinking of working under her knowing her beliefs and how she has treated employees in the past. I knew in my heart I couldn’t stick around. I can’t change her and never will.”

Tuesday, April 13 – PHF Players’ Association elects Nicole Corriero as executive director

The players’ association announced the appointment of former Harvard women’s captain Nicole Corriero as the fourth head of the association. She replaced Alex Sinatra, who spent just three weeks in the position.

Corriero works as an injury attorney in Toronto, specializing in sports injuries and negligence.

Monday, April 12 – PWHPA plans to move forward apart from PHF

The PWHPA informed the PHF that it would move forward separately from the existing league, The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian reported. The decision stemmed from concerns over funding and a “lack of a convincing business proposal.”

Also, the PHF’s ties to John Boynton, chairman of the PHF board of governors and an owner of the Boston Pride and Metropolitan Riveters, was a concern. Boynton is a chairman for Russian technology company Yandex, which has been tied to the ongoing suppression of information and spreading of propaganda in relation to the war.

Monday, April 11 – Digit Murphy tabbed as Riveters president

The Metropolitan Riveters plan to bring on Digit Murphy as the team president for the upcoming season, according to a report from The Ice Garden.

Murphy served as the president and director of player personnel for the Toronto Six for the last two seasons.

Despite a storied career as a player and coach, Murphy has faced criticism for her past association with the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, which has come under fire for its views on transgender athletes.

Wednesday, March 24 – PWHPA, PHF discussions during meeting ‘constructive’

The NHL asked the PWHPA and PHF to come together in a meeting to talk about forming a joint league, and the leagues did so on the eve of the PHF playoffs.

While the PHF deemed the discussions “constructive,” the PWHPA reportedly remained confident in its ability to move forward without the PHF and the NHL.

The NHL repeatedly has said it would not support women’s hockey financially while there are two competing leagues.

Monday, March 7 – Toronto Six sold to new, minority-led ownership group

The PHF announced that the Toronto Six had been sold to the first BIPOC and Canadian investors in PHF history.

The group includes Angela James, Bernice Carnegie, former NHL forward Anthony Stewart and former NHL player and coach Ted Nolan.

James is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and remains the only Black player to serve as captain of the Canadian women’s national team. Carnegie launched the Carnegie Initiative, which aims to ensure inclusivity in the sport. Stewart is the chair of Hockey Equality. Nolan is a member of the First Nation’s Ojibwe tribe and was the NHL’s coach of the year in 1997.

Saturday, February 19 – Commissioner Tyler Tumminia announces resignation

PHF commissioner Tyler Tumminia resigned from her position, a move that was “her decision, her terms,” ESPN reported. Tumminia remained with the league through the end of the postseason in late March.

The league’s second commissioner, Tumminia oversaw the rebranding of the league from the NWHL, a streaming deal with ESPN and a landmark investment from the PHF board of governors.

Friday, January 28 – PHF Players Association parts ways with executive director Alex Sinatra

The PHFPA announced that it had parted ways with executive director Alex Sinatra after just three weeks. The move came after players grew unhappy with Sinatra’s representation of them to owners and the media, The Ice Garden reported.

“My work and advocacy at the PA was always to advocate on behalf of the players with their best interests at heart,” Sinatra said via Twitter. “I was never told by players that any of the appearances, interviews, or conversations I had with anyone were not what the players wanted until Jan. 27th.”

The members of the PHFPA released their own official statement. “As players, we are dedicated to performing and representing ourselves and our teammates at the highest level on and off the ice for our fans, owners, and stakeholders,” they said in the statement.

Tuesday, January 18 – PHF announces historic $25 million investment in players

The PHF announced that its Board of Governors had committed more than $25 million in direct payments and benefits to its players over the next three years. Included in the investment is an increase in the salary cap from $300,000 to $750,000.

In addition to the salary increase, players also will receive full healthcare benefits. The announcement of the investment also promised league expansion, facilities upgrades and an expanded 28-game schedule.

“On behalf of the Board of Governors we are proud to play a part in bringing women’s sports to the next level by investing in the PHF,” said John Boynton, the chairman of the PHF board of governors. “We see the PHF as a platform to address the inequities that women athletes face. We also believe in the sustainability of our developing business model and embrace our responsibility to build a platform that grows this dynamic league to historic heights.”

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.