PWHLPA president Laura Stacey, others hopeful salary leak will help players push for more

Laura Stacey was caught off guard when PWHL player salaries leaked last week.

Now she hopes the added transparency helps players seek better contracts moving forward.

Stacey, the president of the Professional Women's Hockey League Players' Association, addressed the situation Tuesday after The Hockey News published salaries from the 2024-25 season, despite the union voting last summer to make that information available only to players and agents.

"It is amazing for the players that our salaries are public so that one another can help each other, especially in terms of expansion and signing new contracts and free agency," the Montréal Victoire forward said after practice at Verdun Auditorium in Quebec.

"With that being said, we voted on it to be public for our eyes and for our agent's eyes only, so I think that was a bit of a shock for us and not something that we necessarily wanted, or the way we wanted it to come out.

"But with that being said, ultimately at the end of the day, we want the players to be able to push for more and ask for more based on what other people are doing around them."

The Hockey News revealed the 2024-25 salaries — and contracts signed during last summer's exclusive window for the Vancouver and Seattle expansion franchises — in a series of articles citing sources "involved in the PWHL."

The reports sparked debate on social media about salary transparency, and the popular NHL podcast 32 Thoughts weighed in on the issue during its March 27 episode.

In the NHL, players voted to implement salary disclosure in January 1990, with the Montreal Gazette publishing all wages that month, a move widely credited with creating a competitive market and driving up pay.

The PWHL has publicly disclosed