After their league was bought and then dissolved without notice a few weeks ago, the Montreal Force players found themselves without a contract and without a team.
The shock was obvious for the hockey players who had played the club’s first (and only) season last winter. He was probably even more brutal for newcomers whose contract ink had not yet dried.
Élizabeth Giguère is in this second category. At the beginning of May, the Force announced its hiring with great fanfare. This meant a return to Quebec for one of the best players in the province, who had been in the United States for six years to play first at Clarkson University, in the NCAA, then with the Boston Pride, in the Premier Hockey Federation – or PHF, circuit which included the Force.
Originally from Quebec, Giguère moved to the metropolis with his spouse, who is American. In a recent interview with La Presse, she explained her excitement at the idea of joining an organization she heard only good things about, which also allowed her to be closer to her family.
However, at the end of June, a group of investors associated with the Professional Women Players Association (PWHPA) bought the PHF and announced that a single league featuring the best women players in the world would come to life in January 2024. Exit the Force and the six other clubs that made up the league.
“It wasn’t fun news, let’s say. That really wasn’t the plan I had when I moved here,” Giguère said last weekend in an interview on the sidelines of the KR Classic, a charity event attended by a few dozen players. and players from the professional ranks.
“It was a shock,” she continued. I was supposed to play hockey, I had a season ahead of me in Montreal, I finally had the chance to play in front of my family and friends…”
The first few days were “frustrating”. Like most players, she rallies to the idea of a single league, which will finally erase an old rivalry between the PHF and the members of the PWHPA, an association which brings together the majority of Canadian and American Olympians.
However, like all the orphans of the PHF, she has no idea what awaits her. The information, for the athletes concerned as for the public, arrives in dribs and drabs. Players whose contracts have been canceled do not yet have confirmation that they will receive financial compensation.
Calls for candidates to fill leadership positions did not contain further details, the Hockey News wrote Thursday. According to the trade magazine, no major announcement is expected before the first week of August.
Since the new circuit will not start its activities until January, several players have signed contracts with European clubs so as not to lose an entire season.
Nobody knows, moreover, who will or will not have work in the new league, which will apparently have six teams. Giguère, who spent the last year in Hockey Canada’s senior program, would be an obvious candidate. However, she takes nothing for granted. And if a team selects her, can she stay in Montreal? Or should she pack her bags again?
“If that’s what I have to do to play hockey, I’m going to do it,” she says, hoping for the chance to sign a contract for more than one season.
Europe, however, did not seem like a viable option for her, as she hopes to receive an invitation for the Canadian team’s training camp, which will take place in September.
In the meantime, what does she do? “I’m focused on me, on my training, and on the Hockey Canada camp,” says Giguère.
Despite the disappointment, she insists, “I want to be in the new league. »
“Looking back, that’s the best thing for women’s hockey,” she said. No matter when it starts, I hope to be taken. But I can’t wait to find out more. »
