Women’s Hockey Partners (WHP) has officially sold two more NWHL Founding Four NWHL teams. The Connecticut Whale was sold to Tobin Kelly and Shared Hockey Enterprises. Two weeks later, the sale of the 2018 Isobel Cup Champions the Metropolitan Riveters to BTM Partners. BTM partners currently own the Boston Pride and the Toronto Six.

“I'm so excited to welcome a new chairperson to the Riveters organization,” said Riveters general manager Anya Packer last week on a media call.

“Quite frankly, what we've done in the small runway that I've been at the helm here is try to get up to speed. We're trying to innovate some of the roles, some of the things that we're doing, but all of that takes investment. From my vantage point, this acquisition is a huge infiltration of just the right strategy, the right function, and the right roles.”

“It's been a long dream of mine to be involved with the hockey franchise. It was only more recently when the NWHL started that I started to pay more attention to the possibility of it being a woman's club,” Kelly told me during a phone call earlier this month.

Kelly saw BTM owners Miles Arnone and former BTM partner, and current NWHL commissioner, Ty Tumminia succeed in Boston and Toronto and felt 2020 was the right time to reach out about a potential acquisition.

“It was John Boynton who then called me back. That was what got the ball rolling downhill. And it's been a very fast down the road to getting the club approved for transfer.” said Kelly.

Conflict of Interest?

With BTM owning three teams and poised to expand to Montreal after next season, it is natural to wonder how the ownership model is different from the league or WHP owning multiple teams.

According to BTM partner Boynton, moving from a single entity league to a joint venture league allows a transitional period where one entity can own more than one of the six NWHL teams. BTM will relinquish its rights to one of its teams in the next five years.

“I would expect that to happen earlier than that. I certainly hope it does,” Boynton told me on a media call last week. “Local ownership is the key to sustainability, and so the sooner we can find the right group of local owners to take on our teams, the better.”

Much like WHP, BTM will work to recruit ownership groups for their three teams. Although BTM didn’t sell the Connecticut Whale directly, Boyton expressed enthusiasm to have Kelly onboard.

“He is going to be an incredible addition to the league staff, and he brings vision. He's doing this for all the right reasons ... we want to find more people like Tobin to take ownership of these teams.”

Location, Location

I spoke to Kelly as he traveled back from a visit to Danbury Ice Arena, where the Whale played the 2018-19 season. As of now, there is no official contract for home ice for the upcoming Connecticut Whale season. Should the team remain in Danbury, Kelly hopes Shared Hockey Enterprises can coordinate an even better game day experience for his athletes than the season prior.

“I definitely want to upgrade some of what they've had access to and, and the rink seems amenable to that ... the goal is to build a really solid long-term hold for the team. I believe that's going to be exactly where they are right now, and the arena seems very open to that. But I won't say that anything's finalized yet,” Kelly told me on a phone call earlier this month.

Last month, Packer told me that she is open to having the Riveters play from multiple arenas in the New York and New Jersey. She was evasive regarding home ice plans during last week’s media call.

“Right now, it’s about finding a rink that has space for us. So we are sourcing a couple of options. We are looking for what looks and feels right for the Riveters moving forward.”

Neither team has a contract signed as of May 2021 for the upcoming season.

Personnel & Salary Cap Changes

The Riveters announced Packer as their new GM ahead of the change in ownership. Packer officially announced Ivo Mocek would return as head coach and will also serve as Director of Player Personnel. The Riveters have not officially announced any player signings since free agency opened May 15.

The Whale announced the re-signing of veteran Alyssa Wohlfeiler on May 28. Kelly noted 2021 GM Amy Scheer is on a leave of absence from her role while working with the WNBA Connecticut Sun franchise. Head coach Colton Orr and assistant coach Laura Brennan are handling player signings for the time being. Kelly also noted the Whale would hire a new general manager, as Scheer will not return to the Whale after her scheduled leave of absence. Despite being privately owned, both teams must operate within the $300,000 per team salary cap.

“We’ll be paying our minimum wage players $7,500. It gives us a little bit more room to increase our salaries. I would say we’re likely not signing anyone above the $30,000 mark,” said Packer.

“The league minimum for salaries was $5,000. As we move to a larger cap, I think that’s going to be set on a team level,” shared Packer, who formerly served as the NWHLPA executive director. No new leader for the PA has been named. It will be interesting to see if the PA can establish a minimum base salary ahead of the 2021-22 season.

The Future of Women’s Pro Hockey

NWHL salaries have steadily increased since founder and former commissioner Dani Rylan abruptly cut wages during the second season. The move led to growing discontent among National Team players who left the now-defunct CWHL en masse to collect the first-ever paycheck in North American professional women’s hockey. Many of those players are now playing in the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA).

The PWHPA is not an official league and does not pay salaries. However, national team members from USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are staying put until what they believe to be a viable option exists for women’s professional hockey.

The PWHPA wraps up the Canadian leg of its second Dream Gap Tour later today. Team Montreal will face Team Toronto for the Dream Gap Tour. Team Minnesota earned bragging rights over Team New Hampshire in the United States.

Ahead of next season, the PWHPA stands to lose a great deal of talent to Olympic residency and centralization for USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, respectively. Now might be the time to sort out a meeting of the minds. Even if the organizations don’t merge, it could be advantageous for both to bake in women’s hockey exhibitions for the 2021-22 season.