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Inside the $1 million commitment that will elevate the Professional Women's Hockey Player Association Dream Gap Tour

Kendall Coyne Schofield last played in a competitive hockey game on March 8 in Arizona, the final stop of the 2019-20 Professional Women's Hockey Player Association Dream Gap Tour. In the nearly eight months since then, the IIHF women's world championships were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and nobody knew if the PWHPA would be able to schedule events again. Coyne Schofield, captain of the U.S. national team, worried that all of the momentum her sport gained over the past few years was coming to a screeching halt.

"Through the months of dealing with COVID-19, a lot of us felt like women's hockey was pushed aside. It wasn't top of mind," Coyne Schofield said. "While we all enjoyed watching the NHL playoffs during the summer, it was a reminder that we still need to value the women's game. We need to find a way to showcase the women's game. There's no reason the women shouldn't have been playing in a playoff like the men were, just like we saw the NBA and WNBA playing out their seasons side by side."

Then, in October, Secret announced that it was upping its contribution for next season -- not only helping women's players get back on the ice but also ensuring that the Dream Gap Tour will keep growing. Secret pledged $1 million, the largest commitment ever made to professional women's hockey in North America.

"When I heard the news out of [PWHPA head] Jayna Hefford's mouth for the first time, I got emotional, to be honest. I was speechless. I think I even shed a tear," Coyne Schofield said. "Because we fight, we fight and we fight to show our worth and to prove our worth. For Secret to come on board and show we are worth what we have been saying we're worth is a monumental moment for the game. Now Secret sets the market for everyone else who wants to be involved."

There's a stat WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert shares often, including in a conversation with LaChina Robinson at the 2020 espnW: Women + Sports Summit: Less than 1% of sports sponsorship dollars goes to women's sports, despite 84% of sports fans being interested in women's sports and women controlling 85% of U.S. spending power.

"We should be able to really transform the way women's sports are valued," Engelbert said. "Some of it's in the algorithm of the way it gets valued because I believe it's off a men's model, heavily discounted. But some of it is in exposure."

That seems especially pertinent in women's hockey. When the CWHL folded in 2019, citing an unsustainable business model, the U.S.-based NWHL became the only professional women's hockey league in North America. But nearly all of the sport's top players -- including most Canadian and U.S. Olympians -- decided to sit out from the NWHL -- or any league -- until one formed that they believe is a sustainable long-term option and can pay them a living salary. That group formed the PWHPA in 2019.

Many have called on the NHL to fund a women's league, similar to the NBA's relationship with the WNBA, considering that the NHL could easily share infrastructure and resources. Although the NHL has been supportive of women's hockey, the league has shown very little interest in funding a league. As deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN in March, "We continue to try to be helpful where we can be, but other than that, we don't have much of a role." Hockey Canada and USA Hockey are also in line with the PWHPA's goals, but neither federation has matched that support with meaningful financial contributions.

That has led the PWHPA to rely heavily on corporate sponsorships.

In 1956, Secret, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, became the first deodorant product made for and marketed to women. "Secret has always stood, from its birth, for women's equality," said Lisa Reid, Secret Canada's brand director. In recent years, Secret has turned attention to women's sports. In 2019, Secret donated $529,000 -- $23,000 for each of the 23 players on the U.S. women's soccer team that won the World Cup -- to help close the pay gap. Secret took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, urging the U.S. Soccer Federation to "be on the right side of history" during the USWNT's fight for equal pay. This summer, Secret became a presenting sponsor of the NWSL's Challenge Cup, which allowed women's professional soccer players a chance to get exposure and play some of their season amidst the pandemic.

"As we looked at it, hockey is Canada's iconic sport," Reid said. "When you see inequality there, too, it's both symbolic and pervasive. So we wanted to support top women's athletes and give girls role models to look up to."

In its first year, PWHPA counted Adidas, Budweiser, Dunkin', the NHLPA and Secret as "premiere partners." While each of the companies has pledged to be back, Secret wanted to be even more involved.

"We wanted to make a big commitment, a big statement about the importance of equality in women's hockey," Reid said. "We wanted to continue to support the women to be able to train and compete ... but also, there's some marketing investment as well, so we can continue to shine the light and tell the stories of athletes and what they have been facing so we can change the future of women's hockey."

The timing could not have been better for the PWHPA, which was coming off a six-stop barnstorming tour across North America that ended in March in Arizona. "We felt really good about year one," Hefford said. "It came together really quickly, obviously, but we were really happy with the success we could achieve in a short period of time. From my personal perspective, I wanted to make sure we were elevating what we did. How could we do it bigger? How could we do it better? For us to move this along, we needed to see progress."

Then COVID-19 hit, and everything became uncertain. Hefford said the PWHPA never feared it would have to sit out a season, but the league needed a big financial commitment more than ever, especially with the top athletes not playing in high-level competition for nearly a year.

"We were asking, how do we regain the momentum we created?" Hefford said. "How can we make sure that women and women's sports aren't left out of the story?"

According to Hefford, the $1 million from Secret will be divided into three categories. The first is operational costs: travel expenses, ice time, coaching, meals, etc. The second is cash prizes to players on the 2021 Dream Gap Tour to make it a true championship-style tour.

"That's something we're really excited about," Hefford said. "It can engage fans on a different level but also just for our athletes. This is nothing they've ever experienced before, being able to play a game and earn money from it."

The third pillar is media and marketing support to make sure the PWHPA stays visible. Last year, the Dream Gap Tour picked up streaming partners in Monumental Sports Network (run by Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis) and ESPN for its final two stops. Hefford is aiming bigger for 2021.

"We hope to have these games broadcast and, at the very least, streamed," Hefford said. "There's a lot of elements we're still putting into place, but this commitment by Secret will allow us to elevate our entire tour and support our players in a much bigger way."

The PWHPA pared down from eight regional chapters to five -- Calgary, Minnesota, Montreal, New Hampshire and Toronto -- for the upcoming season, which will allow the league to better allocate resources. "There's additional ice time this season than they had last season. Every region has a permanent dressing room, access to strength and conditioning," Hefford said. "These are little things that you would expect but didn't always exist."

The PWHPA is hoping to announce its 2021 Dream Gap Tour schedule soon. As of now, the league provides three on-ice training sessions per week for players at each of the five regions, though local COVID-19 restrictions have interfered. (For example, the New Hampshire rinks are currently closed. Toronto can skate with up to 10 players on the ice at a time, while in Montreal, there can be only two).

For a player such as Coyne Schofield, progress means everything at this stage, and the commitment from Secret was a huge morale boost during an uncertain time.

"It really shows that there are people out here that value our game," Coyne Schofield said. "Without those partners, without that financial support, we can't put our best product on the ice. I think it's exceptional, but I also hope it's not exceptional because we need it to continue."

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PITTSBURGH, PA - MARCH 12: Alex Carpenter #25 of Team United States attempts a shot as Micah Zandee-Hart #28 of Team Canada defends in the third period during the Rivalry Rematch at PPG PAINTS Arena on March 12, 2022 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images)

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Originally published on October 14, 2022; Last updated October 19, 2022

The 2022-23 Secret Dream Gap Tour, hosted by the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association (PWHPA), is underway. Competition began the weekend of October 15-16 in Montreal, Quebec, and continues on November 4-6 in Truro, Nova Scotia.

While this year’s competition will look more like a traditional hockey season, the Dream Gap Tour is not the PWHPA’s end goal. With that in mind, here are a few answers to frequently asked questions about the PWHPA, including an explainer on how rosters were determined, info on how to livestream games, a schedule of upcoming games, and an update on the organization’s long-term goal of launching a new women’s pro hockey league.

When and where is the PWHPA playing this season?

Results from the October 15-16 stop in Montreal, Quebec (Centre 21.02):

• October 15, 1:30 pm ET: Team Scotiabank 2, Team Sonnet 4
• October 15, 4:15 pm ET: Team Harvey’s 2, Team adidas 4
• October 16, 1:30 pm ET: Team adidas 0, Team Scotiabank 5
• October 16, 4:15 pm ET: Team Sonnet 2, Team Harvey’s 3 (SO)

Two additional stops have been announced as of October 19, 2022:

• November 4, 3:30 pm ET: Team Scotiabank vs. Team Harvey’s
• November 4, 7:00 pm ET: Team adidas vs Team Sonnet
• November 5, 2:30 pm ET: Team Sonnet vs. Team Harvey’s
• November 5, 6:00 pm ET: Team Scotiabank vs. Team adidas
• November 6, 11:00 am ET: Team adidas vs. Team Sonnet
• November 6, 2:30 pm ET: Team Harvey’s vs. Team Scotiabank
• November 26, 12:30pm ET: Team Harvey’s vs. Team adidas
• November 26, 3:30pm ET: Team Scotiabank vs Team Sonnet
• November 27, 11:30am ET: Team Sonnet vs. Team adidas
• November 27, 2:30pm ET: Team Scotiabank vs. Team Harvey’s

How can you watch PWHPA games?

Fans worldwide will be able to watch every PWHPA game this season via CBCsports.ca , the CBC Sports app, CBC Gem and the CBC Sports YouTube channel.

How were PWHPA rosters selected this year?

In a change from previous years, the four competing PWHPA teams — Team adidas, Team Harvey’s, Team Scotiabank and Team Sonnet — are no longer regionally determined.

“The goal from the beginning was really to create parity across the four teams and make it very competitive all season,” said PWHPA Operations Consultant Jayna Hefford .

While the PWHPA has traditionally used a tryout process for its regional sites, Hefford noted the timing of August’s IIHF Women’s World Championship made that complicated. The organization didn’t want to hold tryouts in July, when most players typically aren’t in hockey mode, but waiting until September wasn’t an option given that the organization’s player pool shrunk this year.

“We didn’t think (September) was fair for players who may not make a roster and then, at that point, wouldn’t have a chance to tryout for another team or another league,” said Hefford.

As a result, the PWHPA implemented a new ranking system. A nine-person selection committee -- with experience in the NCAA, U Sports, and national governing bodies -- began by providing the 150-plus players who registered with a skill rating and experience rating. In addition to the ranking process, players who weren’t with their respective national teams during the summer were invited to a more traditional tryout at the regional sites.

“No player in the PA knows what their ranking is, which I think is really great,” said Kristen Richards , who attended the tryout in Toronto and was ultimately named to Team Harvey’s. “So everybody kind of went into the tryout thinking, we’re gonna do our absolute best and do whatever it takes to make the team.”

Following the tryout, the PWHPA invited the top-100 players -- based on their original ranking or their tryout score -- to participate in the 2022-23 season.

The process of dividing the players into four 25-player rosters was also complicated, as Kristina Rutherford highlighted in this Sportsnet story , with everything from nationality to sponsorship affiliations playing a role. (Final PWHPA rosters are listed below.)

The new roster format will result in some players playing on the same team together for the first time, including the hypothetical -- and thrilling -- prospect of Canadian Sarah Nurse and Americans Amanda Kessel and Kendall Coyne Schofield competing on the same line for Team adidas.

“We’re mixing it up a little bit and there’s four star-studded rosters that we’re really excited about,” Coyne Schofield said ahead of the first stop in Montreal, adding that she didn’t yet know who her linemates would be.

Richards, who is based in Toronto, is personally excited to play with two players from Montreal: the legendary Marie-Philip Poulin (the “obvious” choice), as well as Karell Emard .

“We typically butt heads on the ice quite a bit, so it’ll be exciting to have her on my team this time around,” Richards said of Emard. “We always battle about who has the most penalties, too.”

How is the PWHPA organized?

Hefford serves as the PWHPA’s Operations Consultant, while the organization’s strategic decisions are made by its board, which consists of nine current and former players: Jocelyne Lamoureux Davidson, Karell Emard, Alyssa Gagliardi, Brianne Jenner, Hilary Knight, Sarah Nurse, Noora Raty, Kimberly Sass , and Kendall Coyne Schofield .

“I bring suggestions to them, or if our advisory board has suggestions, I’ll bring those to the board. And ultimately, the board decides how they want to proceed,” Hefford explained.

“I think trusting the process and trusting the leadership is a huge part of being a player and being a member of the PWHPA -- and understanding that you’re not going to know the ins and outs of every conversation, every phone call,” Richards said of what it’s like for non-board members.

“As players, we’re not used to non-disclosures. ... There’s some information that some players will be privy to and there’s going to be information that players aren’t. The best thing about being in the PWHPA is that my job right now is to show up, play hockey, and put the best product on the ice... while I’m trusting that the others are doing their best to build what is going to be the future of women’s hockey.”

While the nine-player PWHPA board makes the big decisions, they aren’t the people doing the groundwork or crunching the numbers on market prospects.

“We’ve spent the last year-and-a-half or so working with the team at Deloitte and other industry experts and developing our own business plan for a women’s professional league,” explained Hefford. “We felt like it was time for us to take control of our own destiny and not wish and hope for anybody else to do that. So it’s been a really empowering process for our players and our board.”

Do players make money playing in the Dream Gap Tour?

PWHPA players receive stipends for competing in the Secret Dream Gap Tour, and there is also the potential to earn prize pool money. While Hefford said that players will be compensated more this season than in the past, she noted that player contracts are still being finalized and that the organization won’t be announcing figures until that process is completed.

How close is the PWHPA to launching its own hockey league?

To be clear: the Secret Dream Gap Tour is not the PWHPA’s end goal, even if this year looks more like a traditional season.

The PWHPA formed in May 2019 after more than 200 players announced they would be sitting out the 2019-20 season, essentially boycotting the then NWHL (later rebranded as the PHF). While the Dream Gap Tour has served as a stop-gap solution in recent years, most of the organization’s work has been happening behind-the-scenes and away from social media.

In May, the PWHPA signed a letter of intent with Billie Jean King Enterprises and the Mark Walter Group, with the goal of creating a new women’s professional hockey league.

It was previously reported that a PWHPA-led league (seperate from the Dream Gap Tour) would launch in January 2023, but that timeline has since shifted, and this season’s Dream Gap Tour will continue through March.

“When I’m up close to it as a player, I wanted it (a new women’s pro league) yesterday. I think we all did,” PWHPA board member Hilary Knight told On Her Turf in August.

At the Women’s Sports Foundation Annual Gala on Wednesday night, Billie Jean King confirmed that talks with the PWHPA are ongoing. “We’re doing due diligence and we’ll see what happens,” she said.

But the connection between King and the PWHPA extends beyond their current letter of intent.

In 1970, the “original nine” in tennis — led by King — broke away from the men’s tennis tour to take a stand for equal pay, despite warnings from U.S. tennis officials.

“We were willing to give up our careers,” King remarked ahead of the first Dream Gap Tour stop, noting that she’s seen the same in the PWHPA.

“They’re willing to give up their careers for the future generations so I really admire them. ... You have to visualize where you want to go, see the dream, and then you have to build it. And that’s not easy. It’s really not easy.”

This isn’t some theoretical concept for Richards, who knows she might not play in the league that eventually launches.

“For me, I hope the PA gets so good that, at some point, I don’t make this league,” she explained. “Our goal as the PWHPA was always to create something that was much bigger than ourselves.”

What will the future league include that doesn’t currently exist?

Things like a living wage and health coverage are just two bullets on the PWHPA’s laundry list of requirements. Other highlights include team medical staff, player representation, and arena standards.

“It’s very easy for a lot of people to be like, ‘This is the girls complaining. They don’t have enough, they want to make millions of dollars like the NHL.’ No, we don’t. We want basic employee rights, where we have parameters around our work day and we have access to the needs of professional athletes,” PWHPA Advisor Liz Knox told On Her Turf last spring .

“We’ve been saying for years now that it’s not just about the salaries,” echoed Hefford on Friday. “If it were about salaries, our players would be playing in various leagues around the world. It’s really about infrastructure and the resources... and that’s why it’s taking as long as it is -- because those things don’t happen overnight.”

The importance of proper infrastructure has only been emphasized in recent weeks. The U.S.-Soccer commissioned Yates report detailed how the lack of basic workplace protections in the NWSL created an environment in which abuse could thrive.

Following the release of the Yates report, On Her Turf reached out to a variety of women’s pro leagues -- both established and those in planning mode -- about whether they have or plan implement an anti-harassment policy. PWHPA media consultant Ashley McLellan confirmed that player safety policies (including an anti-harassment policy) will be implemented from the beginning of their planned league.

“What’s happened recently with both the Yates report and the Hockey Canada situation, it’s a good reminder that we need to ensure (a strong foundation) and we have an opportunity to do it from day one,” Hefford said.

“I read some of the comments from the soccer players that they just wanted to play, they just wanted to be in a league. And our players feel the same way and that’s what’s made this so challenging is that they just want to play. I get that. As a former player, I feel the same way. But I think we also have a lot of comfort in knowing that we are doing this the right way, we are doing the work that -- in our minds -- has never been done for women’s professional hockey.”

PWHPA Rosters - 2022-23 Secret Dream Gap Tour

Team adidas.

• Defenders: Emily Curlett, Jessica Digirolamo, Jincy Dunne, Megan Eady, Renata Fast, Halli Krzyzaniak, Jocelyne Larocque, Meaghan Mikkelson
• Forwards: Kendall Coyne Schofield, Samantha Donovan, Laura Dostaler, Kelly Gribbons, Jess Jones, Amanda Kessel, Sarah Nurse, Kristin O’Neill, Sarah Potomak, Jill Saulnier, Laura Stacey, Kayla Vespa, Kaitlin Willoughby
• Goaltenders: Aerin Frankel, Maddie Rooney, Sydney Scobee, Shea Tiley
• Staff: Matt Leitner (GM/Head Coach)

Team Harvey’s

• Defenders: Mellissa Channell, Laura Fortino, Jacquie Greco, Savannah Harmon, Kristen Richards, Lauriane Rougeau, Lee Stecklein
• Forwards : Emily Clark, Rosalie Demers, Jessie Eldridge, Karell Emard, Alexa Gruschow, Rhianna Kurio, Bailey Larson, Marie-Philip Poulin, Alexandra Poznikoff, Jamie Lee Rattray, Hayley Scamurra, Sophia Shaver
• Goaltenders : Marlène Boissonnault, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Geneviève Lacasse
• Staff: Danièle Sauvageau (GM/Head Coach)

Team Scotiabank

• Defenders: Jaime Bourbonnais, Mélanie Desrochers, Katelyn Gosling, Megan Keller, Brigette Lacquette, Makayla Langei, Cat Quirion, Ella Shelton
• Forwards: Victoria Bach, Alex Carpenter, Mélodie Daoust, Madison Field, Grace Graham, Rebecca Johnston, Nicole Kosta, Hayley Lunny, Kelly Pannek, Tatum Skaggs, Natalie Spooner, Blayre Turnbull
• Goaltenders: Kristen Campbell, Amanda Makela, Emerance Maschmeyer
• Staff: Becky McGee (GM), Dean Seymour (Head Coach)

Team Sonnet

• Defenders: Erin Ambrose, Leah Bohlken, Lilian Braga, Emily Brown, Emma Buckles, Ella Matteucci, Nikki Nightengale, Claire Thompson, Micah Zandee-Hart
• Forwards: Hannah Brandt, Hanna Bunton, Samantha Cogan, Demi Crossman, Iya Gavrilova, Brianne Jenner, Hilary Knight, Rebecca Leslie, Carolyne Prévost, Abby Roque, Malia Schneider, Natasza Tarnowski
• Goaltenders: Lindsay Browning, Nicole Hensley, Erica Howe
• Staff: Rebecca Michael (GM), Laura McIntosh (Head Coach)

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PWHPA announces 2022-23 Dream Gap Tour

Four teams for the fourth year

The PWHPA announced on Thursday the return of the Dream Gap Tour. Starting on Oct. 14, four PWHPA teams - separate from their training region - will compete in multiple weekend series in cities across North America, including a new “special event” all leading up to a championship weekend.

The five stops in the fall portion of the Tour will be announced “in the coming weeks.” The PWHPA confirmed to The Ice Garden in an email that this is planned to be an October to March tour with the winter dates coming later this fall.

The fourth iteration of the Dream Gap Tour is a combination of what the organization has done in the past for rosters. There’s once again five training hubs - Boston, Calgary, Minnesota, Montreal, and Toronto. New for the 2022-23 season is that the players on these rosters will be ranked, then placed onto one of four region-less rosters based on these rankings. The team names will remain the same through the season - Team adidas, Team Harvey’s, Team Scotiabank and Team Sonnet. Each will have 25 players for a total of 100 players playing and practicing across the organization.

The goal, the organization said in an email, is to avoid players having to relocate while also having more parity amongst teams.

The PWHPA told TIG the “[r]ankings are based on a combined numerical score of skill rating, experience rating and tryout performance.”  They also confirmed the National Team players who were unable to make tryouts due to camp were ranked based on skill and experience.

This differs from past Dream Gap Tours were the rosters ranged from randomized (2019-20) to mostly set (2020-21) to a mix of both (2021-22).

When asked about player compensation, salary caps, disclosure of both, as well if players would be paid even if they do not make a Dream Gap Tour stop team for a specific weekend, the PWHPA said compensation information was “to be confirmed.”

In the past, PWHPA players have not been paid salaries. In previous seasons, the winners of each weekend stop was awarded an unspecified prize amount.

This announcement comes after months of speculation about the PWHPA’S new league. Reports all summer have indicated that a new league spearheaded by the PWHPA is coming, likely in January. The league would provide a suitable platform for the elite players and pay them fairly. It would erase the need for showcases and hubs.

What’s up with the PWHPA?

The PWHPA stated they are still pursuing creating a paid professional league but declined to give any further details via their press release, stating they are “under NDA with potential partners.” Any thoughts about when or if this league will happen is speculation. The PWHPA will presumably someday replace the DGT with a league but when that happens remains in the air. It appears that the Tour is here to stay for another year.

The PWHPA will announce the schedule and locations of their five showcase weekends and other special events later in August.

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PWHPA 2022-23 season schedule kicks off with Secret Dream Gap Tour

The Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association announced its plans for the 2022-23 season Thursday, which will feature the annual Secret Dream Gap Tour with stops in cities across the U.S. and Canada. The league statement announced a record number of games scheduled for the season and new roster formats.

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The PWHPA, which was founded in 2019, will feature four teams this season: Team Adidas, Team Harvey’s, Team Scotiabank and Team Sonnet. Each will boast a roster of 25 players.

“Coming into our fourth season, we continuously look for ways to increase opportunities for our players to compete as we move towards our ultimate goal of a professional league,” operations consultant Jayna Hefford said. “We also want to continue to provide an exciting product for hockey fans to enjoy, and we’re confident this will be our biggest, most competitive season to date. The depth of talent in women’s hockey increases every year and we’re excited to continue to support our world-class athletes and provide a platform for the best players in the world to perform.”

The league announced rosters for the coming season will be created by a new player ranking format, put together by a panel of women’s hockey experts. The panel will evaluate and evenly distribute the top 100 players across the four teams.

According to the press release, this year’s player field will feature 43 Olympians, more than 75 players with national level experience and new top college graduates. The rosters will be unveiled in September.

The Dream Gap Tour will kick off on Oct. 14 and will feature five weekend events, as well as “a new special event,” the release said, which will be released later this month.

In the meantime, the PWHPA said in the release that it continues working toward establishing its own professional league “for the best women in the world.”

In May, The Athletic reported that the PWHPA entered into a formal partnership with Billie Jean King Enterprises and The Mark Walter Group to explore the launch of a new professional women’s hockey league.

The Walter Group and BJK Enterprises’ involvement marks a major step forward toward the PWHPA’s goal of creating a financially stable, professional league for elite women’s hockey players. Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, has experience financing sports at the highest level and a massive bankroll. King and Ilana Kloss — King’s longtime partner and CEO of BJK Enterprises — likewise have experience running sports organizations and bring obvious cachet of their own.

Since then, however, there hasn’t been many details regarding the potential league. The PWHPA said on Thursday that it cannot comment further on details, citing a non-disclosure agreement in place with potential partners.

(Photo: Justin Berl / Getty Images)

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The lone U.S. stop of the women’s hockey Dream Gap Tour will be in the D.C. area

The Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association and the Washington Capitals will partner to host the 2021-22 Dream Gap Tour’s lone stop in the United States. Four games will be held at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, the team’s practice facility in Arlington, from March 4 to 6.

The Capitals also will offer local clinics with PWHPA athletes for players of all skill levels from March 3 to 5. The PWHPA, formed in 2019, features 125 players whose mission is to “promote, advance and support a single, viable professional women’s ice hockey league in North America.”

No players associated with the PWHPA are competing professionally in North America this season; they are waiting until a league is in place that they believe gives professional women’s hockey the resources it deserves. The PWHPA’s goal is to create a league that not only pays a living wage to its players but also provides “appropriate elite-level resources.”

The Dream Gap Tour stop in Arlington is the sixth time the PWHPA has partnered with an NHL team for the showcase. Previous stops this season included Nova Scotia and Toronto in Canada, and a visit to Ottawa is planned for later this month. U.S. stops on last year’s tour included New York, Chicago and St. Louis.

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“There is an incredible talent within the PWHPA, and we look forward to hosting the games and clinics at MedStar Capitals Iceplex,” Capitals team president Dick Patrick said in a statement. “... Helping to advance the game among women across all levels is incredibly important to us as an organization, and we are honored to be working with the PWHPA on this event.”

A complete schedule of events, including ticket information and registration for the clinics, will be available on the Capitals’ website .

“We’re excited to finally be able to share what has been in the works with the Washington Capitals for quite some time,” Jayna Hefford, the PWHPA’s lead operations consultant, said in a statement. “… We’re excited to make our way back into the United States and continue working towards our ultimate goal.”

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Sportsnet announces schedule for PWHPA Secret Dream Gap Tour in Canada

Sportsnet has announced its broadcast schedule for the Canadian leg of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association's Secret Dream Gap Tour, taking place from May 24-30.

Sportsnet will deliver coverage of the round-robin competition between Team Scotiabank (Calgary), Team Sonnet (Toronto) and Team Bauer (Montreal) as they face off to become the Canadian Secret Cup champion. In addition to live game broadcasts, Sportsnet will showcase the superstars of the PWHPA through an exclusive content series and cross-platform promotion in collaboration with event partner Secret Deodorant.

Sportsnet’s Secret Dream Gap Tour broadcast schedule gets underway May 24 with four back-to-back matchups exclusive to SN NOW from May 24-27 and culminates in three national TV broadcasts on Sportsnet from May 28-30. All seven games will also be available to stream on sportsnet.ca (Full broadcast details below).

Sportsnet’s broadcast team includes:

From Calgary – Play-by-play announcer Leah Hextall has the call alongside two-time Olympic gold-medallist and Sportsnet analyst Cassie Campbell-Pascall and host Brendan Parker

At the Desk – Hosts Caroline Cameron and Jeff Marek anchor pre-, intermission and post-game coverage alongside the following panelists: • Caroline Ouellette – four-time Olympic gold-medallist and 12-time IIHF Women’s World Championship medallist • Blake Bolden – PWHPA defenceman and L.A. Kings pro scout • Contributors – Christine Simpson and Tara Slone shine the national spotlight on the athletes of the PWHPA with exclusive interviews and in-depth features.

Secret Dream Gap Tour on Sportsnet – Broadcast Schedule

Monday, May 24 – Team Sonnet vs. Team Bauer, 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT (SN NOW) Tuesday, May 25 – Team Bauer vs. Team Scotiabank, 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT (SN NOW) Wednesday, May 26 – Team Scotiabank vs. Team Sonnet, 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT (SN NOW) Thursday, May 27 – Team Bauer vs. Team Sonnet, 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT (SN NOW) Friday, May 28 – Team Scotiabank vs. Team Bauer, 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT (Sportsnet & SN NOW) Saturday, May 29 – Team Sonnet vs. Team Scotiabank, 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT (Sportsnet & SN NOW) Sunday, May 30 – Championship Final, 4:30 p.m. ET / 1:30 p.m. PT (Sportsnet & SN NOW

*all games also available to stream on sportsnet.ca

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PWHPA: SECRET® DREAM GAP TOUR HEADING TO OTTAWA, ON

Sonnet Showcase, set for February 26-27, will take place at Steve Yzerman Arena

TORONTO, ON – January 20, 2022 – The Professional Women’s Hockey Player Association (PWHPA) is heading to Canada’s capital for the third stop of the 2021-22 Secret® Dream Gap Tour. Officially titled the Sonnet Showcase, the event will take place in Ottawa on February 26-27, and will feature Team adidas (Minnesota), Team Bauer (Boston), Team Harvey’s (Montreal), and Team Sonnet (Toronto).

The games will take place at the Steve Yzerman Arena and, once again, all teams will vie to take home the weekend prize pot. Game one will feature Team adidas and Team Sonnet battling each other, while Team Bauer and Team Harvey’s will face-off in game two. Winners of the Saturday games will meet in the championship, and the remaining two teams will square off in the consolation game. Tickets for the event will be made available the week of January 24th via Showpass.

“The PWHPA is excited to bring the Secret Dream Gap Tour to Ottawa for the first time,” said Jayna Hefford, PWHPA Operations Consultant. “Ottawa is a strong hockey market, with a large number of girls youth hockey programs. We also know this will allow young hockey fans—girls and boys—to see the top talent compete and inspire them to follow their hockey dreams.”

Sonnet— who has been a key sponsor for the PWHPA for the last two seasons— has expanded their support of the PWHPA’s mission by providing additional funding for the upcoming Ottawa showcase through this title sponsorship.

“Sonnet proudly supports the PWHPA in our shared commitment to advancing women’s professional sports,” said Brian Long, VP Marketing, Sonnet. “As part of the ongoing journey to create a sustainable professional women’s hockey league, the Sonnet Showcase is another opportunity for these incredibly skilled athletes to display their talent and compete at an elite level.”

The event will mark the first time the PWHPA has played in Ottawa. Team Scotiabank (Calgary), who won the first two Secret® Dream Gap Tour showcases this season, will not be at the event, which leaves the door open for a new weekend winner to be crowned.

About the PWHPA Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association’s (PWHPA) mission is to promote, advance and support a single, viable professional women’s ice hockey league in North America that showcases the greatest product of women’s professional ice hockey in the world. The organization aims to provide a united voice to players advocating for the creation of a sustainable professional league. PWHPA is working to accomplish its mission by coordinating training needs and programming opportunities and collaborating with like-minded organizations to make hockey more inclusive for women and future generations. To learn more about PWHPA and the Secret Dream Gap Tour, visit pwhpa.com .

About Sonnet Insurance Launched in 2016, Sonnet Insurance Company (Sonnet) is a federally regulated insurance company. Our mission is to provide Canadians with an easy, transparent, and customized way to buy home and auto insurance online. Experience the future of insurance at  Sonnet.ca , and say hello on  Twitter ,  Instagram ,  Facebook , and  LinkedIn .

Media Inquiries:

PWHPA Ashley McLellan PWHPA Media Consultant [email protected]

Sonnet Insurance Shayla Schipper Manager, Communication [email protected]

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PWHPA SECRET ® DREAM GAP TOUR 2021/2022

This year will feature the latest installment of the Dream Gap Tour, which will once again allow players to compete for prize pots and event championships. It will also feature an all-new All-Star team, sponsored by Secret ® Deodorant. The team— which will be known as the Secret ® All-Star Team— will compete throughout the season against various women's national teams leading up to the 2022 Winter Olympics. Rosters for the Secret ® All-Star team will vary by event and will be chosen by the GMs and coaches of the five PWHPA hubs.

There are ways to learn more:

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In Toronto, Calgary, Montreal Minnesota and Boston

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Top players will compete against various women’s national teams in multiple showcase events across North America

Players will compete for cash prizes and the Secret Cup

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Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?

The environmental protection agency says “forever chemicals” must be removed from tap water. but they lurk in much more of what we eat, drink and use..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”

[THEME MUSIC]

This month for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency began to regulate a class of synthetic chemicals, known as forever chemicals, in America’s drinking water. But the chemicals, which have been linked to liver disease and other serious health problems, are in far more than just our water supply. Today, my colleague Kim Tingley explains.

It’s Wednesday, April 17.

So Kim, any time the EPA announces a regulation, I think we all sort of take notice because implicit in it is this idea that we have been exposed to something — something bad, potentially, lead or asbestos. And recently, the EPA is regulating a type of chemical known as PFAS So for those who don’t know, what are PFAS chemicals

Yeah, so PFAS stands for per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They’re often called forever chemicals just because they persist so long in the environment and they don’t easily break down. And for that reason, we also use them in a ton of consumer products. They’re in makeup. They’re in carpet. They’re in nonstick cookware. They’re in food packaging, all sorts of things.

Yeah, I feel like I’ve been hearing about these chemicals actually for a very long time. I mean, nonstick pans, Teflon — that’s the thing that’s in my mind when I think PFAS.

Absolutely. Yeah, this class of chemicals has been around for decades. And what’s really important about this is that the EPA has decided, for the first time, to regulate them in drinking water. And that’s a ruling that stands to affect tens of millions of people.

So, help me understand where these things came from and how it’s taken so long to get to the point where we’re actually regulating them.

So, they really actually came about a long time ago. In 1938, DuPont, the people who eventually got us to Teflon, they were actually looking for a more stable kind of refrigerant. And they came upon this kind of chemical, PFAS. The thing that all PFAS chemicals have is a really strong bond between carbon atoms and fluorine atoms. This particular pairing is super strong and super durable.

They have water repellent properties. They’re stain resistant. They’re grease resistant. And they found a lot of uses for them initially in World War II. They were using them as part of their uranium enrichment process to do all these kinds of things. And then —

Well, good thing it’s Teflon.

In the 1950s is when they really started to come out as commercial products.

Even burned food won’t stick to Teflon. So it’s always easy to clean.

So, DuPont started using it in Teflon pans.

Cookware never needs scouring if it has DuPont Teflon.

And then another company, 3M also started using a kind of PFAS —

Scotchgard fabric protector. It keeps ordinary spills from becoming extraordinary stains.

— in one of their big products, Scotchgard. So you probably remember spraying that on your shoes if you want to make your shoes waterproof.

Use Scotchgard fabric protector and let your cup runneth over.

Right — miracle product, Scotchgard, Teflon. But of course, we’re talking about these chemicals because they’ve been found to pose health threats. When does that risk start to surface?

Yeah, so it’s pretty early on that DuPont and 3M start finding effects in animals in studies that they’re running in house.

Around the mid ‘60s, they start seeing that PFAS has an effect on rats. It’s increasing the liver and kidney weights of the rats. And so that seems problematic. And they keep running tests over the next decade and a half. And they try different things with different animals.

In one study, they gave monkeys really, really high levels of PFAS. And those monkeys died. And so they have a pretty strong sense that these chemicals could be dangerous. And then in 1979, they start to see that the workers that are in the plants manufacturing, working with these chemicals, that they’re starting to have higher rates of abnormal liver function. And in a Teflon plant, they had some pregnant workers that were working with these chemicals. And one of those workers in 1981 gave birth to a child who had some pretty severe birth defects.

And then by the mid 1980s, DuPont figures out that it’s not just their workers who are being exposed to these chemicals, but communities that are living in areas surrounding their Teflon plant, particularly the one in Parkersburg, West Virginia, that those communities have PFAS in their tap water.

Wow, so based on its own studies, DuPont knows its chemicals are making animals sick. They seem to be making workers sick. And now they found out that the chemicals have made their way into the water supply. What do they do with that information?

As far as we know, they didn’t do much. They certainly didn’t tell the residents of Parkersburg who were drinking that water that there was anything that they needed to be worried about.

How is that possible? I mean, setting aside the fact that DuPont is the one actually studying the health effects of its own chemicals, presumably to make sure they’re safe, we’ve seen these big, regulating agencies like the EPA and the FDA that exist in order to watch out for something exactly like this, a company that is producing something that may be harming Americans. Why weren’t they keeping a closer watch?

Yeah, so it goes kind of back to the way that we regulate chemicals in the US. It goes through an act called the Toxic Substances Control Act that’s administered by the EPA. And basically, it gives companies a lot of room to regulate themselves, in a sense. Under this act they have a responsibility to report to the EPA if they find these kinds of potential issues with a chemical. They have a responsibility to do their due diligence when they’re putting a chemical out into the environment.

But there’s really not a ton of oversight. The enforcement mechanism is that the EPA can find them. But this kind of thing can happen pretty easily where DuPont keeps going with something that they think might really be a problem and then the fine, by the time it plays out, is just a tiny fraction of what DuPont has earned from producing these chemicals. And so really, the incentive is for them to take the punishment at the end, rather than pull it out early.

So it seems like it’s just self-reporting, which is basically self-regulation in a way.

Yeah, I think that is the way a lot of advocacy groups and experts have characterized it to me, is that chemical companies are essentially regulating themselves.

So how did this danger eventually come to light? I mean, if this is in some kind of DuPont vault, what happened?

Well, there’s a couple different things that started to happen in the late ‘90s.

The community around Parkersburg, West Virginia, people had reported seeing really strange symptoms in their animals. Cows were losing their hair. They had lesions. They were behaving strangely. Some of their calves were dying. And a lot of people in the community felt like they were having health problems that just didn’t really have a good answer, mysterious sicknesses, and some cases of cancers.

And so they initiate a class action lawsuit against DuPont. As part of that class action lawsuit, DuPont, at a certain point, is forced to turn over all of their internal documentation. And so what was in the files was all of that research that we mentioned all of the studies about — animals, and workers, the birth defects. It was really the first time that the public saw what DuPont and 3M had already seen, which is the potential health harms of these chemicals.

So that seems pretty damning. I mean, what happened to the company?

So, DuPont and 3M are still able to say these were just a few workers. And they were working with high levels of the chemicals, more than a person would get drinking it in the water. And so there’s still an opportunity for this to be kind of correlation, but not causation. There’s not really a way to use that data to prove for sure that it was PFAS that caused these health problems.

In other words, the company is arguing, look, yes, these two things exist at the same time. But it doesn’t mean that one caused the other.

Exactly. And so one of the things that this class action lawsuit demands in the settlement that they eventually reach with DuPont is they want DuPont to fund a formal independent health study of the communities that are affected by this PFAS in their drinking water. And so they want DuPont to pay to figure out for sure, using the best available science, how many of these health problems are potentially related to their chemicals.

And so they ask them to pay for it. And they get together an independent group of researchers to undertake this study. And it ends up being the first — and it still might be the biggest — epidemiological study of PFAS in a community. They’ve got about 69,000 participants in this study.

Wow, that’s big.

It’s big, yeah. And what they ended up deciding was that they could confidently say that there was what they ended up calling a probable link. And so they were really confident that the chemical exposure that the study participants had experienced was linked to high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, and pregnancy induced hypertension.

And so those were the conditions that they were able to say, with a good degree of certainty, were related to their chemical exposure. There were others that they just didn’t have the evidence to reach a strong conclusion.

So overall, pretty substantial health effects, and kind of vindicates the communities in West Virginia that were claiming that these chemicals were really affecting their health.

Absolutely. And as the years have gone on, that was sort of just the beginning of researchers starting to understand all the different kinds of health problems that these chemicals could potentially be causing. And so since the big DuPont class action study, there’s really just been like this building and building and building of different researchers coming out with these different pieces of evidence that have accumulated to a pretty alarming picture of what some of the potential health outcomes could be.

OK, so that really kind of brings us to the present moment, when, at last, it seems the EPA is saying enough is enough. We need to regulate these things.

Yeah, it seems like the EPA has been watching this preponderance of evidence accumulate. And they’re sort of deciding that it’s a real health problem, potentially, that they need to regulate.

So the EPA has identified six of these PFAS chemicals that it’s going to regulate. But the concern that I think a lot of experts have is that this particular regulation is not going to keep PFAS out of our bodies.

We’ll be right back.

So, Kim, you just said that these regulations probably won’t keep PFAS chemicals out of our bodies. What did you mean?

Well, the EPA is talking about regulating these six kinds of PFAS. But there are actually more than 10,000 different kinds of PFAS that are already being produced and out there in the environment.

And why those six, exactly? I mean, is it because those are the ones responsible for most of the harm?

Those are the ones that the EPA has seen enough evidence about that they are confident that they are probably causing harm. But it doesn’t mean that the other ones are not also doing something similar. It’s just sort of impossible for researchers to be able to test each individual chemical compound and try to link it to a health outcome.

I talked to a lot of researchers who were involved in this area and they said that they haven’t really seen a PFAS that doesn’t have a harm, but they just don’t have information on the vast majority of these compounds.

So in other words, we just haven’t studied the rest of them enough yet to even know how harmful they actually are, which is kind of alarming.

Yeah, that’s right. And there’s just new ones coming out all the time.

Right. OK, so of the six that the EPA is actually intending to regulate, though, are those new regulations strict enough to keep these chemicals out of our bodies?

So the regulations for those six chemicals really only cover getting them out of the drinking water. And drinking water only really accounts for about 20 percent of a person’s overall PFAS exposure.

So only a fifth of the total exposure.

Yeah. There are lots of other ways that you can come into contact with PFAS. We eat PFAS, we inhale PFAS. We rub it on our skin. It’s in so many different products. And sometimes those products are not ones that you would necessarily think of. They’re in carpets. They’re in furniture. They’re in dental floss, raincoats, vinyl flooring, artificial turf. All kinds of products that you want to be either waterproof or stain resistant or both have these chemicals in them.

So, the cities and towns are going to have to figure out how to test for and monitor for these six kinds of PFAS. And then they’re also going to have to figure out how to filter them out of the water supply. I think a lot of people are concerned that this is going to be just a really expensive endeavor, and it’s also not really going to take care of the entire problem.

Right. And if you step back and really look at the bigger problem, the companies are still making these things, right? I mean, we’re running around trying to regulate this stuff at the end stage. But these things are still being dumped into the environment.

Yeah. I think it’s a huge criticism of our regulatory policy. There’s a lot of onus put on the EPA to prove that a harm has happened once the chemicals are already out there and then to regulate the chemicals. And I think that there’s a criticism that we should do things the other way around, so tougher regulations on the front end before it goes out into the environment.

And that’s what the European Union has been doing. The European Chemicals Agency puts more of the burden on companies to prove that their products and their chemicals are safe. And the European Chemicals Agency is also, right now, considering just a ban on all PFAS products.

So is that a kind of model, perhaps, of what a tough regulation could look like in the US?

There’s two sides to that question. And the first side is that a lot of people feel like it would be better if these chemical companies had to meet a higher standard of proof in terms of demonstrating that their products or their chemicals are going to be safe once they’ve been put out in the environment.

The other side is that doing that kind of upfront research can be really expensive and could potentially limit companies who are trying to innovate in that space. In terms of PFAS, specifically, this is a really important chemical for us. And a lot of the things that we use it in, there’s not necessarily a great placement at the ready that we can just swap in. And so it’s used in all sorts of really important medical devices or renewable energy industries or firefighting foam.

And in some cases, there are alternatives that might be safer that companies can use. But in other cases, they just don’t have that yet. And so PFAS is still really important to our daily lives.

Right. And that kind of leaves us in a pickle because we know these things might be harming us. Yet, we’re kind of stuck with them, at least for now. So, let me just ask you this question, Kim, which I’ve been wanting to ask you since the beginning of this episode, which is, if you’re a person who is concerned about your exposure to PFAS, what do you do?

Yeah. So this is really tricky and I asked everybody this question who I talked to. And everybody has a little bit of a different answer based on their circumstance. For me what I ended up doing was getting rid of the things that I could sort of spot and get rid of. And so I got rid of some carpeting and I checked, when I was buying my son a raincoat, that it was made by a company that didn’t use PFAS.

It’s also expensive. And so if you can afford to get a raincoat from a place that doesn’t manufacture PFAS, it’s going to cost more than if you buy the budget raincoat. And so it’s kind of unfair to put the onus on consumers in that way. And it’s also just not necessarily clear where exactly your exposure is coming from.

So I talk to people who said, well, it’s in dust, so I vacuum a lot. Or it’s in my cleaning products, so I use natural cleaning products. And so I think it’s really sort of a scattershot approach that consumers can take. But I don’t think that there is a magic approach that gets you a PFAS-free life.

So Kim, this is pretty dark, I have to say. And I think what’s frustrating is that it feels like we have these government agencies that are supposed to be protecting our health. But when you drill down here, the guidance is really more like you’re on your own. I mean, it’s hard not to just throw up your hands and say, I give up.

Yeah. I think it’s really tricky to try to know what you do with all of this information as an individual. As much as you can, you can try to limit your individual exposure. But it seems to me as though it’s at a regulatory level that meaningful change would happen, and not so much throwing out your pots and pans and getting new ones.

One thing about PFAS is just that we’re in this stage still of trying to understand exactly what it’s doing inside of us. And so there’s a certain amount of research that has to happen in order to both convince people that there’s a real problem that needs to be solved, and clean up what we’ve put out there. And so I think that we’re sort of in the middle of that arc. And I think that that’s the point at which people start looking for solutions.

Kim, thank you.

Here’s what else you should know today. On Tuesday, in day two of jury selection for the historic hush money case against Donald Trump, lawyers succeeded in selecting 7 jurors out of the 12 that are required for the criminal trial after failing to pick a single juror on Monday.

Lawyers for Trump repeatedly sought to remove potential jurors whom they argued were biased against the president. Among the reasons they cited were social media posts expressing negative views of the former President and, in one case, a video posted by a potential juror of New Yorkers celebrating Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Once a full jury is seated, which could come as early as Friday, the criminal trial is expected to last about six weeks.

Today’s episode was produced by Clare Toeniskoetter, Shannon Lin, Summer Thomad, Stella Tan, and Jessica Cheung, with help from Sydney Harper. It was edited by Devon Taylor, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

• April 18, 2024   •   30:07 The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial
• April 17, 2024   •   24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
• April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
• April 15, 2024   •   24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
• April 14, 2024   •   46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
• April 12, 2024   •   34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
• April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
• April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma
• April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
• April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
• April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Kim Tingley

Produced by Clare Toeniskoetter ,  Shannon M. Lin ,  Summer Thomad ,  Stella Tan and Jessica Cheung

With Sydney Harper

Edited by Devon Taylor

Original music by Dan Powell ,  Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The Environmental Protection Agency has begun for the first time to regulate a class of synthetic chemicals known as “forever chemicals” in America’s drinking water.

Kim Tingley, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, explains how these chemicals, which have been linked to liver disease and other serious health problems, came to be in the water supply — and in many more places.

On today’s episode

Kim Tingley , a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.

Background reading

“Forever chemicals” are everywhere. What are they doing to us?

The E.P.A. issued its rule about “forever chemicals” last week.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

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