Nearly four years after the end of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), the sport appears to have reached another critical moment in time.
The Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association (PWHPA), built from the ashes of the CWHL, has slowly risen, and according to multiple reports, it plans to launch a proper pro league next fall funded by Billie Jean King Enterprises and the owner of baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers.
In that time, nearly the entire PWHPA membership has held strong — a group that features every single non-collegiate player on the Team Canada roster for the upcoming world championships, which begin April 5 in Brampton, Ont.
The few that have departed — most notably the now-retired American star Brianna Decker — moved on to the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), a league that used to be known as the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) and was once a direct competitor of the CWHL.