PWHL offseason adventures — What to read

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Summer tournaments

The PWHL offseason is long, so it’s perhaps not surprising that players find ways to get back on the ice over the summer. In Montréal, the Living Sisu Hockey League (LSHL) is a seven-week, four-team, 3×3 hockey tournament and fundraiser for the Pancreatic Cancer Foundation of Canada. The LSHL has men’s and women’s divisions, both of which feature a mix of pros, college athletes and prospects. PWHL players participating include Marie-Philip Poulin, Savannah Harmon, Cayla Barnes, Emmy Fecteau, Kristin O’Neill, Alexandra Labelle, Maureen Murphy and Catherine Dubois — plus 2025 Victoire draft pick Maya Labad.

In the US, Minnesota is home to Da Beauty League, a long-running 4×4 summer tournament that added a women’s division in 2024. For the second year of the tournament, as you might expect, Minnesota Frost players feature heavily, with names like Taylor Heise, Grace Zumwinkle, Natalie Buchbinder, Maddie Rooney, Nicole Hensley, Lee Stecklein, Kelly Pannek, Claire Butorac and Brooke Bryant. Other PWHL players participating include Denisa Křížová, Izzy Daniel, Abby Boreen, Gabbie Hughes, Gabbie Rosenthal, Natalie Snodgrass and 2025 Ottawa draft pick Rory Guilday. Proceeds from the tournament go toward four charities: United Heroes League, Hendrickson Foundation, Herb Brooks Foundation and Shine A Ligh7.

If you want to catch your favorite PWHL players’ summer hockey, both LSHL and Da Beauty League games stream online. 

LS7 Sticks In for Charity

Laura Stacey’s annual charity road hockey tournament drew in plenty of her PWHL teammates and opponents, plus $65,000 to help support youth access to sports. The sixth iteration of the event was bigger than ever, with more participants, more fundraising and more community-building. Among the PWHLers in attendance were Emily Clark, Renata Fast, Sarah Fillier, Jocelyne Larocque, Emma Maltais, Marie-Philip Poulin, Jamie Lee Rattray, Jill Saulnier, Jaime Bourbonnais, Maggie Connors, Claire Dalton, Jess DiGirolamo, Jessie Eldridge, Julia Gosling, Mikyla Grant-Mentis, Maureen Murphy, Kayla Vespa and Darryl Watts. The winners were the team led by Erica Howe, who defeated Sarah Fillier’s team for the tournament title. Since its founding, the charity event has raised over $100,000, and Stacey intends to broaden its footprint by bringing Sticks In for Charity to Montréal on August 23.

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Walter Cup Tours

As is tradition, the 2025 Walter Cup winners from the Minnesota Frost have been taking the trophy to their hometowns and on their travels. Nicole Hensley took the Cup to the top of Pike’s Peak in her home state of Colorado. California also gets to meet Walter for the first time, as Dominique Petrie is taking the PWHL championship trophy to the Los Angeles area, including appearances with the LA Kings and Anaheim Ducks, throwing the first pitch at a Dodgers game, and even a trip to the Hollywood sign! The Walter Cup tour has also made stops at the Mall of America, Minnesota Twins games and a US Women’s National Team soccer game. You can follow along with the trophy’s offseason travels with the web series “Forging Frost” — available on the team’s YouTube channel. 

Podcasting

What do the author of this newsletter and Zoe Boyd have in common? It’s certainly not hockey skills or fashion sense — but we do both host podcasts! Boyd, who recently signed with the Boston Fleet after spending the last two years with the Ottawa Charge, started a podcast “No Straight Answers” about sports and queer culture. The first episode, featuring Boyd’s former Ottawa teammate Emily Clark and her girlfriend, New York Sirens forward Jaime Bourbonnais, is out now. (And if you want more women’s hockey audio content, check out my show “Purple Posts” — a podcast about offbeat stories in women’s hockey history!)

What to read

Do you have no idea who’s even on your favorite PWHL team anymore? Never fear, The Ice Garden has you covered! Emma Sullivan wrote a good rundown of how each team’s roster has shaken out by mid-July. TIG also has a handy signing tracker if you want the most up-to-date roster info!

For more details on some of those signings, check out Meredith Foster’s report on Anna Shokina and Fanuza Kadirova, the first Russians to sign in the PWHL, from TIG; Hailey Salvian’s discussion of Sarah Fillier re-signing with New York at The Athletic; and conversations with Sydney Bard and Natalie Snodgrass about moving to the West Coast expansion teams from The Hockey News.

If you have a lot of thoughts on the Hockey Hall of Fame, good news — so does Geremy. He did a great two-part feature on Florence Schelling, Shannon Szabados, and why these legendary goaltenders deserve to be in the HHOF.