Trade deadlines and roster freeze dates are fun. Fans spend a lot of the day reading rumors on social media and refreshing their feeds to see the latest information. For major league men’s sports, there’s usually full-day coverage of the transaction period — in print, or on TV or radio, or all of the above. For women’s sports it’s obviously different — in many cases roster freeze deadlines and trade deadlines are quieter, either because there are fewer teams in the league or because there’s less money to throw around, or both. As a casual fan of the National Women’s Soccer League, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a trade deadline as chaotic as an NHL deadline day, for example.
My experience with my first couple of roster freeze dates as an agent has been really interesting, for a couple of reasons.
One, teams abroad don’t do trades in the same way that North American teams do. This isn’t sport specific. College drafts and trades are a very North American invention. With many of my players in European leagues this year, trades were not something that was on my (or their) radar, and any transfers between leagues were completed with full awareness and cooperation from the player (and myself).
SDHL — January 2024 Roster Freeze
Sally sees Stockholm by the seashore in @sallyhoerr latest Life of an Import! https://t.co/fErmBahjQ6
— The Ice Garden (@TheIceGarden) March 18, 2024
My first roster deadline day was in the SDHL. In January, SDHL teams are required to submit their final rosters to the league office. These rosters will include all players who are eligible for the SDHL playoffs.
One of my clients, Sally Hoerr (you’ll recognize her from the Life of an Import series here on The Ice Garden), had been playing in the European Women’s Hockey League with the Kärnten Lakers. Earlier in the year, but after she had committed to the Lakers, she had received an email from Linköping HC in the Swedish women’s hockey league (SDHL) inquiring about her availability. At the time we agreed that keeping in touch with them was a good idea, because you really never know what’s going to happen.
As it turned out, heading into the final stretch of the season and towards the playoffs, Linköping ended up needing a defender. Sally had been playing really well in Austria, but it wasn’t the best fit for her, so we decided to work with Linköping to get her from the EWHL to the SDHL before the deadline.
In a situation where players are being transferred between leagues during the season, there are a lot of moving parts. You have to consider the terms of the contract they are already signed to (in this case her Lakers contract), the contract they’re signing for the rest of the season (Is housing provided? What’s the health insurance situation like?), and transfer fees. Typically, the team acquiring the player will pay a fee to the team losing the player, but there might also be additional fees paid to the federations that form the backbone of the leagues or fund the team.
The biggest issue we ran into with Sally’s transfer was a unique one that had not occurred to me: even if Linköping paid the transfer fee immediately, since the payment was moving between countries (Sweden to Austria), it was impossible for the payment to be received by the Lakers before the deadline. Not to mention there was the whole question of how, exactly, to pay an Austrian bank account from a Swedish bank account. Or would Sally pay the Lakers and get reimbursed by her new Swedish team? Or, or, or … on and on for about 24 hours. Meanwhile, I’m in North America in the Mountain Time Zone, eight hours behind them, so these conversations are happening at five in the morning my time … or else they’re happening around midnight my time.
Luckily, the SDHL did not care about when the transfer fee would be received by the Lakers. All that was needed to complete the transfer before the deadline, as far as the SDHL was concerned, was an invoice from the Lakers showing the transfer fee to be paid, and proof from Linköping that they had initiated the process of paying that invoice. I have to give Linköping general manager Sabina Eriksson a lot of credit for finding out exactly what the minimum documentation was that would allow the transfer to make it over the line in time. Sally did a great job connecting the two of us and was an active participant in getting the deal over the line. My role was to communicate with the Lakers to get that invoice to Sabina. We got the deal done pretty much at the wire, and Sally headed off to Sweden, where she successfully finished out her season.
PWHL — March 2024 Roster Freeze
My second transfer occurred when one of my clients, Malia Schneider, was eliminated from the playoffs with Brynäs IF in the SDHL. She had already been a reserve for PWHL Ottawa in the past, so it was a natural fit — especially at a time when the team felt they wanted some more offensive depth. The easy part was figuring out that Malia and Ottawa wanted the same thing. With so many of my players in Ottawa at various points this season, I have a good relationship with the GM, Michael Hirshfeld, and we spoke often over the couple of days we were trying to get this done.
There was a lot of back and forth about what specific paperwork we needed in order to prove to the PWHL that Malia was eligible to return to the league. The Brynäs GM, Erika Grahm, is incredible and was super supportive and helpful through this process. We couldn’t book Malia’s flight back to North America until we knew the league would approve the transfer, and ultimately that brought us right up to the deadline. For a few days, we were more or less just waiting to see whether we could get her signed in time. The league did push the deadline out a bit, which helped a lot.
With Erika’s help, we were eventually able to get the exact right paperwork to prove Malia’s eligibility to the PWHL. It essentially involved proving that she was released from her SDHL contract a few days early. I was standing in line to board my own flight to Newark when I booked Malia’s flight to the same place! She landed in Newark a few days after me, and I was able to go get her and bring her to the team hotel. It was awesome to get to see her reunite with the girls — and really satisfying to get everything signed and squared away before the deadline.
PWHL — March 2024 Trade Deadline
This one was especially bonkers (a word we use in the business) because there has never been a PWHL roster freeze date or trade deadline before. We knew, in theory, how it was supposed to work — what kind of transactions were allowed before and what kind of transactions were allowed after — but as a practical matter, there just was no precedent for how this was going to actually go. Up until about an hour before the deadline, I, like everyone else, thought it was going to be a quiet one.
In a last minute deadline deal, PWHL Ottawa has acquired forward Tereza Vanišová from Montreal in exchange for defender Amanda Boulier. 🔁 pic.twitter.com/kt5X53tds9
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 18, 2024
In almost any league, there are players who it’s easier to guess will be traded by the deadline (or at least you have an idea that the team will try to move them). The general public may not know these players, although in some leagues the secrets are badly kept … sometimes intentionally so. That being said, just because the public is surprised by a trade doesn’t mean that people close to the league are surprised by the trade. Sometimes players request trades, often because they feel the system isn’t a good fit or they’re not getting the opportunities they could elsewhere. Sometimes the opposite happens and a team determines a certain player isn’t a good fit, which makes you think maybe they will try to move her before the deadline. There are also positional needs to consider, like whether or not a given team has a surplus of centers or a need for a center.
I ended up having two players traded at this deadline, and I didn’t really expect either of them to be moved, but that’s pro sports! As far as Caitrin Lonergan (traded from Ottawa to PWHL Boston, along with Lexie Adzija, in exchange for Shiann Darkangelo), the mechanics of her trade had never been done before. That is, she was drafted by Ottawa but never signed, and I didn’t know whether the league would allow Ottawa to trade her rights. Teams weren’t allowed to trade their 2024 draft picks, so I wasn’t sure if Caitrin was a tangible enough asset to be traded.
I think that agents (and players) don’t actually get much more insight than fans do, as far as the specifics of negotiations and plans. At least, that’s how it went for us. At the end of the day, it isn’t really any of my business how the trade came about. It’s not something I have control over when it happens without us requesting it, and my job is just to make the transition to the new team easier. All of the GMs that I communicated with at the deadline (Boston’s, Ottawa’s, and Montréal’s) were exceedingly professional and responsive, and made it clear how much they cared about the involved players as people and athletes. So while it’s true that things can happen very quickly, and even surprise the people involved, I think that’s typical for any professional sports league.
TRADE: We have acquired forward Lexie Adzija and the rights to Caitrin Lonergan from PWHL Ottawa in exchange for forward Shiann Darkangelo.⁰
EN 📰: https://t.co/en9ofYqvOS⁰FR 📰: https://t.co/nYcuQ7BvpOpic.twitter.com/jY644eZfOV— PWHL Boston (@PWHL_Boston) March 18, 2024
So how exactly does this go down?
The player in question got a call from the GM informing her that she was traded to another team. Then — I think pretty much immediately — the GM called me and told me they traded my player to another team. I may have gotten slightly more information as to why they did the deal, but probably not much. For example, I didn’t know the return for either trade until the general public did (and neither did the involved players), because the players coming the other way hadn’t been informed yet and team management weren’t going to tell me before they told the other player she was being traded, which is entirely fair.
Then, the GM for the player’s new team called me. In that call, we discussed when she needed to arrive and whether there was anything else that needed to be done. Finally, the new GM called the player they traded for, to formally welcome her to the team.
Now for the logistics nightmare of moving someone to a new city in 48 hours. Luckily, Caitrin lives in Boston already, so that one was easy. Amanda Boulier (traded from Ottawa to PWHL Montréal in exchange for Tereza Vanišová) was in Connecticut with all her stuff ahead of Ottawa’s March 20 game against PWHL New York. Montréal didn’t play until Sunday, but we wanted to make sure Amanda was at practice on Wednesday morning. Ottawa’s staff helped make sure she was booked on a flight back to Ottawa, then she drove to Montréal with all her stuff in time to make practice. My biggest responsibilities were to coordinate with Montréal’s manager of team services to figure out where Amanda would stay once she arrived and to make sure there wasn’t anything else that she needed to know or do before she headed over. (Did she need to complete a physical? Would her Ottawa bank account work for her to get paid in Quebec? Did her temporary hotel accommodation provide parking? And so on.)
À la veille du match de demain, Amanda partage quelques mots alors qu’elle se prépare à faire ses débuts pour l’équipe de Montréal contre Minnesota😃
Ahead of tomorrow’s game, Amanda shares a few words as she anticipates her debut in the Montreal jersey against Minnesota 😃 pic.twitter.com/0CvEaZBVi7
— LPHF Montréal (@PWHL_Montreal) March 23, 2024
I tried to make it as easy as I could for her to just get in the car and go as soon as possible, and to ask questions for her so that she didn’t need to. Still, it’s a tough transition, things happen very quickly, and I think we got lucky that the trade was to a fairly close-by team. I can’t imagine trying to pull off those logistics in a situation where it was not feasible for the player to drive herself from her old market to her new market. The teams assist with a lot of different pieces, and Montréal is a first-class organization where everyone has been super helpful and responsive. Ultimately, Amanda made it to Montréal on time and was set up in a perfect hotel setup before their road trip, which will give us a little more time to find something for the rest of the season.
Final Notes
If I’ve learned anything over the past three months, it’s how to stay responsive and flexible during these deadlines. You have to be able to solve problems and think on your feet, and you can’t be afraid to call someone you’ve never spoken to before to try to figure something out. It’s my job to be aggressive in solving these problems and getting these questions answered so that the player doesn’t need to worry about too much outside of actually getting there and playing. I’ve found it very rewarding to know that I can reduce the mental load for players during these transitions, even a little bit.
Simon Hopkins
Roster deadlines are completely different from league to league, so knowing the rules and tricks for each one makes the process easier. Now that there has been one PWHL trade deadline, I’m sure the process will become even more streamlined. It will be interesting to see how the leagues continue to work together and how their relationships evolve — particularly the SDHL and PWHL.