Former Toronto Six player Mikyla Grant-Mentis — now the highest-paid player in women’s hockey — is ready to face her old team

You could say Buffalo Beauts forward Mikyla Grant-Mentis is looking very forward to facing the Toronto Six Friday night in the first meeting of the season between the Premier Hockey Federation teams this season.

Grant-Mentis is facing her old team for the first time since her celebrated departure to Buffalo last May, and the highly publicized, $80,000 (U.S.) contract she signed that reportedly made her the highest salaried player in women’s hockey.

The contract remains big news — even more so after the PHF announcement Wednesday that it is doubling its salary cap to $1.5 million for next season. Grant-Mentis remains a trail-blazer for better pay in the women’s game, but there’s something about her current stat line — no goals in Buffalo’s first four games — that she wants to change.

“One hundred per cent,” Grant-Mentis said, when asked in a phone interview Thursday about scoring against her old team. “I’ve been on a streak with no goals. A couple of goals against them would be great.”

But “it’s definitely special to face them. I’m super excited to see all my old teammates, but it will be a test too, how hard I can go against players I know and played with … they are friends.”

Grant-Mentis has plenty of friends with the Six, and she has made new ones in Buffalo, and around the league, as one of the highest-profile players in women’s hockey.

She rooms with Beauts’ goalie Kassidy Sauve, and with fellow forward Michaela Boyle living in the same building, the three players get to hang out, play video games, watch TV, and go out for the odd dinner.

Grant-Mentis is also thrilled that the PHF announced Thursday that the league’s all-star game will be held in Toronto Jan. 28-29. The game marks the first all-star contest in Canada for the league, and Grant-Mentis made more friends at last year’s game, which was moved from Toronto to Buffalo due to COVID restrictions.

“You get to spend time with other players and meet them off the ice,” Grant-Mentis said of the all-star experience.

“I met Madison Packer (of the Metropolitan Riveters) last year and we became friends. We went to a Women’s Sports Foundation event together, but on the ice, it’s a different story, we’re not friends, so you learn those things and its great.”

For Grant-Mentis, a new hockey life in Buffalo has worked out well, although the pressure from her contract remains steady. While she still leads her team in points, with four, Grant-Mentis and the Beauts have played a league-low four games, in large part due to the cancellation of a two-game series against Connecticut caused by the big storm that hit Buffalo a couple of weeks ago.

“I’d say everything is OK, but we missed the Connecticut games because of the storm … so, everything is coming back to me, the pressure is on me every day because everyone knows (about the contract), but it’s easier than it was the first two games,” Grant-Mentis said.

Pressure, yes, but Grant-Mentis is also buoyed by the fact the league doubled its salary cap. Starting next season, players can earn an average of $75,000 if their team spends up to the cap limit (and all seven PHF teams are currently spending at 75 per cent of the cap and higher).

“It’s exciting to know that every player next year can make a living out of playing hockey,” Grant-Mentis said.

“They won’t need a job to make more money, and that’s nice. A lot of players and team (management) will see the benefits of not juggling things around, other than playing hockey and practising and recovering. We won’t have to have practices at 9:30 at night just because someone is working, and players won’t have to miss practices because they have to work … it’s only going to make the game better.”

“I don’t know if it affects women any differently,” Grant-Mentis added, referring to the increased salary cap.

“Giving up free time to play hockey and work a job at the same time is something we did from the get-go as pros … us women know that to do the things we love to do, we have to sacrifice other things, so it’s not hard once you have that mind set. If you told an NHL player that when he retires, he has to get a job to continue to make money, I think it would be harder on him than it is on us.”

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