‘This is why it mattered’: Women’s pro hockey is about to have its moment

When the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) folded in March 2019, most of the best women’s hockey players in the world were in Finland, preparing for the World Championships that were set to begin a few days later.

But not Liz Knox, who had joined the CWHL in 2011.

“None of the Olympians were here. So lucky little me, I had a million media requests,” the Ontario native says.

As co-chair of the CWHL Players’ Association, Knox took two days off from her day job in construction to field those inquiries. At the time, she didn’t have any concrete plans or goals for herself or the players she was representing. But she did know that she didn’t want history to repeat itself.

“Five, 10 years down the road, I don’t want to be having the same conversation again. I don’t want to be in the same position where we are not seeing the sponsorship dollars or the media coverage we want or still relying on our national team players to promote the entire league,” she told the Athletic in a March 2019 interview.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Finland, American players Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne were also trying to figure things out. “They said, ‘Ok, we need to get everyone on a call. We just need to talk and figure out what’s going on,'” Knox recalled.

It boiled down to two options: they could join the then National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) — which has since rebranded as the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) — and deal with many of the same issues they faced in the CWHL.

Or, they could try something much more radical: stop playing entirely.

They chose the latter.

In May 2019, Knox was one of more than 200 players who announced she would be sitting out the upcoming season. A few weeks later, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’