Buffalo Beauts’ Grant-Mentis will be the first women’s professional hockey player to win $80,000

BUFFALO, NY – Professional women’s hockey has its first $80,000 player after the deal Mikyla Grant-Mentis concluded with the Premier Hockey Federation’s buffalo beauties.

Two people with direct knowledge of the deal confirmed the deal to The Associated Press on Sunday, with one person revealing the value of the deal. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because the signing of the contract was not announced. Canada’s TSN first announced the deal on Friday.

The Grant-Mentis contract includes a PHF bonus of up to 10%, one of the people said.

The deal comes just over a week into free agency, with Grant-Mentis becoming the first to benefit from the PHF’s decision to more than double his salary cap to $750,000 per team. The cap jumped $300,000 last year.

The PHF, renamed the National Women’s Hockey League last summer, did not release salary figures for the previous three seasons, making it difficult to determine which player previously had the highest salary in a league established in 2015-16. . The highest paid players in 2016-17 earned around $26,000.

Grant-Mentis, 23, has the production to earn the contract after completing her second full season with the Toronto Six.

She finished second in the PHF with 30 points and 17 assists, and tied for second with 13 goals, including a league-leading six wins last season. Two years ago, she won MVP and Newcomer of the Year honors in the league’s COVID-19 shortened season.

From Brampton, Ont., Grant-Mentis returns to Buffalo where she broke out as a professional. She played two games with the Beauts to close out the 2019-20 season following her four-year college career at Merrimack, where she set the program record for most career points, 117, in 137 games.

Along with increasing its salary cap, the PHF is also expected to grow from six to eight teams, with one franchise based in Montreal and a second in an as-yet-undisclosed U.S. location.

The developments come as the PHF prepares to face competition for talent as the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association prepares to launch its own league in the coming year. Members of the PWHPA include players from the US and Canadian national teams.