Premier Hockey Federation (PHF)

The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) is a women’s professional hockey league that plays in the United States and Canada. The league was founded in 2015 as the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), the first paid professional hockey league for women. Initially, the NWHL consisted of four teams—the Boston Pride, Connecticut Whale, New York Riveters, and Buffalo Beauts. In 2018, the league added the Minnesota Whitecaps, and two years later, the Toronto Six. The league also planned to add an expansion club in Montreal in 2022. The NWHL rebranded itself in 2021 as the Premier Hockey Federation in an effort to adopt a more inclusive identity. The league champion is awarded the Isobel Cup, a trophy named after the daughter of Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, the namesake of the National Hockey League’s championship trophy, the Stanley Cup.

Background

The earliest form of ice hockey is believed to have originated in seventeenth-century Great Britain where ice skating and stick-and-ball games were both becoming popular activities. Ice hockey arrived in the British colony of Canada in the nineteenth century and soon became one of its national sports. In 1889, British politician Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, who had been appointed Governor General of Canada a year earlier, attended a hockey game in Montreal and became enamored with the sport. Three years later, he donated the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup to be awarded to the best amateur hockey team in Canada. The trophy soon became known as the Stanley Cup. Since the 1940s, the Stanley Cup has been awarded exclusively to the National Hockey League (NHL) champion.

Three of Stanley’s four children, including his daughter Isobel, played amateur hockey during the family’s time in Canada. Isobel took part in the first-known organized women’s hockey game in the nation in 1889. Throughout the 1890s and into the early twentieth century, men’s and women’s hockey flourished across Canada. Women’s hockey was especially popular on college campuses where organized teams faced off in early league play. From the 1920s to the 1940s, women’s teams were able to participate in the Dominion Championships, a sort of informal national tournament. In the United States, the first women’s hockey games were played in the 1920s.

Although women’s hockey in North America had gained an enthusiastic following prior to World War II (1939–1945), some criticized women who played the sport, saying they were not acting “ladylike.” When war erupted in Europe, many male hockey players were called upon to fight while women put their energies into the war effort at home. After the war, the men returned to their former teams, while most of the women’s teams had folded.

Overview

Interest in women’s hockey began to gain steam again in the 1970s, and by the 1980s, several international tournaments had been organized. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Women’s Championship was established in 1990, and the International Olympic Committee added women’s ice hockey to the 1998 Nagano Winter Games in Japan. By the early 2000s, a number of amateur or semi-pro leagues began popping up, mostly across Canada. The most noteworthy was the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), which provided players with monetary incentives but did not pay salaries.

During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, former US college hockey player Dani Rylan got the idea to form a professional women’s league. She pulled together more than $2 million in investments and created the National Women’s Hockey League in 2015. The league consisted of four teams based in the New York City area; Boston; Buffalo; and Danbury, Connecticut. Initially, the NWHL paid players salaries that ranged between $10,000 and $25,000, with each team held to a $275,000 salary cap. Players also received 15 percent of their jersey sales. Although the money was not enough to keep players from working day jobs, it marked the first time women’s professional hockey players were paid a salary.

At the start of the league’s first-ever game, the ceremonial first puck was dropped by Manon Rheaume, the only female player to ever take the ice for an NHL team. Rheaume played for the Tampa Bay Lightning during the 1992 preseason. The initial NWHL championship was won by the Boston Pride with a 2–0 series win over the Buffalo Beauts. The league winner was awarded the Isobel Cup in honor of Frederick Stanley’s hockey-loving daughter.

The Buffalo Beauts made the first three NWHL championship series, but only won the Isobel Cup in 2016. The New York Riveters—named after the image of “Rosie the Riveter” from the iconic World War II poster—changed its name to the Metropolitan Riveters in 2017 and soon won their first title. A year later, the Minnesota Whitecaps joined the NWHL and took home the championship. Minnesota had played in the amateur Western Women’s Hockey League until the league folded in 2011. After that, the Whitecaps played as an independent team until joining the NWHL.

When the Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded in 2019, its Toronto franchise made the leap over to the NWHL for the 2020 season. The team got its name from Toronto rapper Drake, who refers to his hometown as “The Six,” most likely because of the city’s telephone area codes of 416 and 674. The Pride and Whitecaps were slated to square off for the 2020 Isobel Cup, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the series to be cancelled. The teams did meet in the 2021 title series, however, with Boston winning its second championship.

After a period of financial struggles and labor disputes, the league achieved a greater degree of financial stability by 2021, and made several changes to reflect that status. Most significant was a complete rebranding of the league itself. The league was renamed the Premier Hockey Federation, primarily to remove the word “women” from its title to provide a more inclusive environment for all genders. The league salary cap, after previously being lowered to $150,000 per team, was doubled to $300,000. The league also signed exclusive broadcast rights with ESPN+, the sports giant’s subscription streaming network. Initially, all six teams were owned by the league. However, in 2021, the Whitecaps and Beauts were sold to an ownership group, meaning all six teams were in the hands of independent owners.

Bibliography

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Ficarro, Sam. “Toronto Six: Name, Logo, Roster for the NWHL’s Newest Franchise.” Sporting News, 19 May 2020, https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/nhl/news/toronto-six-name-roster-logo-nwhl-newest-franchise/er0inltr2bdp1wddol05cu6hl. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021.

Krotz, Paul. “Premier Hockey Federation Announces Exclusive Rights Agreement with ESPN+.” Premier Hockey Federation, 20 Oct. 2021, www.premierhockeyfederation.com/news/phf-announces-exclusive-rights-with-espn-plus. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021.

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Wawrow, John. “6 NWHL Teams Individually Owned Following Sale of Beauts, Whitecaps.” CBC/Radio-Canada, 28 June 2021, www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nwhl-franchises-sold-buffalo-minnesota-1.6083016. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021.