The sale and subsequent shuttering of the Premier Hockey Federation had a seismic impact on women’s hockey — and on PHF players.

Investors in the rival Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association bought out the PHF. While the move cleared the way for a singular professional women’s hockey league in North America, PHF players were left without a home.

More than 120 players already had signed with the PHF for the 2023-24 season, but those contracts have been voided, and the players are not guaranteed a spot in the new league. Many already had started to prepare for the upcoming season, from relocating to their teams’ cities to finding housing, before they learned of the sale Thursday via Zoom call.

Mikyla Grant-Mentis was training on the ice when the news broke. She knew about the scheduled call but expected it to be uneventful, so she counted on teammates to catch her up on the details. Instead, less than five minutes after the start of the meeting, they were texting her to tell her their league was finished.

“I got off the ice and was like, ‘Holy crap, I need to get on this call to see what’s happening,’” Grant-Mentis told SportsNet. “It didn’t really last much longer than that, because I feel like everyone was honestly pretty blindsided and didn’t really have much to say. We didn’t really know what was happening at that point.”

Grant-Mentis already had signed with the Buffalo Beauts for the upcoming season, at a price tag of $100,000.

“The first few days were definitely very tough, because we were expecting to make a certain amount of money next year, have our plans set — pretty much getting ready to move back to Buffalo, for me,” she said. “And then in a very short Zoom call, it was kind of all just torn down.”

Veteran leaders from the PHF have told their fellow players to funnel all media requests to them “until further notice,” according to a message reviewed by Just Women’s Sports. The hope is to ensure “PHF players are unified and consistent with our message across all communication channels.”

A group of 11 players issued a public statement Sunday that expressed optimism about women’s hockey moving forward. But 2021 MVP Grant-Mentis is not one of them.

“I hope this group that was put together is able to benefit us and make waves, so the PHF players are not just left in the dust, so that we are taken care of in this new league,” Grant-Mentis said. “I’m hoping they’ll be able to do something for us in the long run. But, you know, it’s all up in the air. We don’t really know what’s going on.”

Just one year ago, Grant-Mentis signed a historic deal with Buffalo that made her the highest-paid professional women’s hockey player in history. Now, she told Sportsnet, she’ll have to find a part-time job to help pay the bills.

While she’ll join PWHPA and PHF players in vying for roster spots in the new six-team league, there are only so many roster spots to go around. Grant-Mentis should be well-positioned among PHF players, but even if she signs with the new league, she will be taking a pay cut.

Player salaries in the new league will range from $35,000 to $80,000, The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian reported. At least six players on each roster must be signed to deals worth at least $80,000 a year, and no more than nine can be signed to contracts worth $35,000 a year.

“I don’t really have any input, because no one really asked us what we think about it,” Grant-Mentis said. PHF players did not get to vote on the PWHPA’s newly ratified collective bargaining agreement, though they will be able to join the union if they sign with the new league.

“So, we kind of just have to go with what’s going on,” she continued. “And hopefully in a couple of years, we’ll be back up to making $100,000 and everyone being able to survive off the money that they’ll be paid.”

Grant-Mentis also is worried about the friends and teammates who could have a hard time making the new league, saying that people are “kind of missing the whole story.” While the best women’s hockey players will convene in one league, there is a downside for a group of players who “don’t really have a voice,” she said.

“It kind of did ruin a lot of people’s lives in a very quick, 10-minute Zoom call,” she said. “I think people should really see the other side of it. You know, all the people in the PHF that signed contracts were relying on this money, relying on the job for next year. And now there’s a very big (sense of) uncertainty.

“With the limited amount of teams [in the new league], that means not everyone’s going to get a spot. … It sucks. Because a lot of people did put their whole life on pause thinking that we would survive for another five, six years playing hockey, and then start their lives. But that kind of came a little bit quicker than many of us were thinking.”

The biggest victors in the WNBA last weekend were the Seattle Storm, as the fifth-place contenders took down the last two league champions to record six wins in their last seven games.

The Storm first took down 2022 and 2023 champs Las Vegas 90-83 on Friday before toppling reigning title-winners New York 89-79 on Sunday.

Guard Skylar Diggins and forward Nneka Ogwumike powered Seattle's two games, putting up 44 and 51 points, respectively, over the weekend.

Forward Gabby Williams also helped fuel the Storm's weekend with two double-double performances.

Seattle is now just one game behind the similarly surging fourth-place Atlanta Dream, while trailing the red-hot No. 3 Phoenix Mercury by 1.5 games.

"Staying ready is what the group is," Storm head coach Noelle Quinn told reporters on Friday. "They're professionals, they're vets."

Teams at the top of the WNBA standings aren't the only squads that saw weekend success, as the No. 6 Golden State Valkyries snagged their second win in a row with Sunday's 87-63 thrashing of the last-place Connecticut Sun.

Despite registering Friday losses, both No. 7 Las Vegas and the No. 9 Washington Mystics finished the weekend on a high note, earning big Sunday wins over the No. 8 Indiana Fever and No. 12 Dallas Wings, respectively.

How to watch the Seattle Storm this week

The Storm will suit back up for another tricky WNBA test on Tuesday, when Seattle hosts the always-dangerous Indiana Fever at 10 PM ET.

The game will air live on NBA TV.

The reigning champion New York Liberty battled through injury and absences over the weekend, narrowly retaining their second-place spot in the WNBA standings despite seeing their losing streak extend to two games with Sunday's 89-79 stumble against the Seattle Storm.

Already missing starting guard Leonie Fiebich, who is overseas competing at the 2025 FIBA EuroBasket tournament, the Liberty also played without center Jonquel Jones and guard Sabrina Ionescu.

While Ionescu is day-to-day with a neck issue, Jones will miss four to six weeks of action due to an ankle injury, the team announced on Saturday.

Despite dropping three of their last four matchups, the champs appear to be taking their recent downturn in stride.

"This isn't going to be the hardest thing that we face all season," said forward Breanna Stewart after Sunday's loss. "We have to kind of embrace the adversity a little bit, whether it's we're down players or things happen in the middle of the game."

New York wasn't the only team in trouble this weekend, though, as the Indiana Fever followed up last Thursday's stumble against the Golden State Valkyries with an 89-81 Sunday loss to the Las Vegas Aces.

Fever guard Caitlin Clark is now one-for-17 from behind the arc in her last two games, as Indiana struggles to break out of their eighth-place standing.

How to watch the New York Liberty this week

New York will hope for added firepower in order to snap their losing streak on Wednesday, when they'll face a rising Golden State squad at 10 PM ET.

Coverage of the game will air live on WNBA League Pass.

The NWSL is officially taking a breather, with the league kicking off the 2025 extended summer break after a roller-coaster weekend slate.

With half the of the 26-match regular season in the books, the No. 1 Kansas City Current extended their lead on the NWSL table to a towering eight points after defeating No. 11 Angel City 1-0 on Friday.

Helping balloon Kansas City's lead was No. 7 Racing Louisville, who kept No. 2 Orlando from claiming any points by securing a 2-0 upset win over the Pride on Friday.

With wins in five of their last seven matches, Louisville's refreshed roster has Racing entering the 2025 summer break with a 6-5-2 NWSL record, as the 2021 expansion side zeros in on a franchise-first playoff run.

"It's all about us. We're not really focused on the other team like we did a little last year," said midfielder Taylor Flint. "What are we going to do — what's our identity? I think that's a huge part of how we've been winning all these games."

On the other end of the table, the bottom four NWSL teams — Angel City, the No. 12 Houston Dash, No. 13 Chicago Stars, and No. 14 Utah Royals — will be looking for a major midseason reboot, after none managed to register a single win in the last five matchdays.

"We go from here, we break now, recharge, and we will be a very difficult opponent for a lot of teams in the second part of the season. That is our target now," said Angel City head coach Alexander Straus after Friday's loss.

There's still a lot left in 2025 NWSL play, with skidding teams banking on fresh starts while surging squads prepare to hit the ground running as soon as the season picks back up in August.

Australian golfer Minjee Lee came out on top at the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, lifting the third major tournament trophy of her career on Sunday.

Entering the final round atop the leaderboard, Lee never relinquished the lead, finishing the tournament a solid three strokes ahead of the competition.

"I definitely was nervous starting the day," the 29-year-old acknowledged following her win. "I looked calm, but not as calm as everybody thinks."

The win earned Lee both an 18-spot rankings boost to world No. 6 and a $1.8 million cut of the event's $12 million prize pool.

Finishing the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship just behind Lee in a second-place tie were 21-year-old Thai pro and new world No. 29 Chanettee Wannasaen and 24-year-old US standout and new No. 49 Auston Kim. Each took home $944,867 thanks to their four-day performances.

Kim, in particular, cobbled together a massive comeback run, chipping away at her nine-stroke deficit entering the competition's final round to claim the best finish of her young career.

"I'm very proud of what I did," the LPGA Tour sophomore said afterwards. "Obviously, the result was really good, but I'm really happy how I handled myself, my emotions, all the adversity. The course is playing really, really tough, but I feel like this week my team and I were very locked in."

Notably, the tournament's top three finishers were the only participants to finish below par, as the field struggled with a punishing week of both Texas heat and windier-than-usual conditions.