On the Hockey Edition of The IX Sports Podcast host Maya Smith is joined by guest Alyssa Turner to talk about PWHL salaries after the PWHL Players Association voted this week to make salaries public for the first time.
Smith said that she was “a little bit shocked” to see that some players make less than people who work office jobs. (You can read more about the salaries in this article from Melissa Burgess.)
The league spent a collective $11.1 million in player salaries last year and every team had at least one player making six figures except for the Vancouver Goldeneyes.
“On one hand, it’s like, wow … the league is paying $126,000 for Emily Clark to play hockey for a season, that’s insane compared to what players 1015 years ago were making,” Smith said. “And then also when you look at players like Katie Chan, for example, on the Goldeneyes, who are making $37,000 a year, then you kind of go like, damn, like that’s really not that that much above having a second job and playing hockey.”
Smith noted that there are stipends for housing and bonuses that have not been made public.
Turner said that the goalies coming in with the lowest average salaries was the most shocking thing for her, but said she doesn’t expect the salaries to stay low for long.
“… It’s hard because I want to be like, ‘oh my god, we’ve come so far,’ but also like players should not be making just above the poverty line so like I struggle with this a little bit … but I just try and remind myself of like okay this league would not be as successful as it was if these players didn’t buy in and sign those contracts,” Turner said.
Expansion team news
Manon Rhéaume was appointed general manager of the Detroit PWHL team, Meghan Duggan will serve as the GM for Hamilton PWHL and Dominique DiDia will serve as the GM for Las Vegas PWHL.
“I also just love to see more women getting these like high level jobs in in the league as well,” Smith said after praising the hires.
Just this week, Kris Sparre was announced as the new head coach of Hamilton PWHL after just a year with the Boston Fleet.
San Jose PWHL took a different approach and hired Troy Ryan as both head coach and GM of their team. Both Smith and Turner have been critical of Ryan in the past, but acknowledged that players love to play for him.
“My two concerns are since roster management is one of the things that we’ve often critiqued about him in the past, now having like full control over that roster management, both who the team is and how they’re deployed, is a little concerning to me,” Smith said.
Be sure to tune in to the podcast to heat more about the upcoming expansion draft!
Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast and Women’s Sports Daily
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women’s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women’s sports news and analysis. Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to podcasts, and make sure to subscribe!
Make sure to subscribe to The IX Sports Podcast for in-depth coverage of women’s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on Women’s Sports Daily, like WNBA preseason news and PWHL playoff updates.
What you missed on today’s episode of Women’s Sports Daily: Everything we know about the PWHL draft