I decided to re-listen to all available audio/video content about the WHL (I like to use "zhkhl," but in translation it will be "WHL" because it stands for "zhenskaya khokkeynaya liga").
Anna Shokhina could have tried to enter the PWHL draft along with Ilona Markova in 2024, but she had a contract with Dynamo-Neva and decided to finish it out.
The minimum salary in the WHL is ~$250 per month. The maximum is ~$3,700 (according to Anna).
Anna says that the situation with women's teams in high school and junior hockey has improved;
Anna herself advises girls to play in mixed teams with boys for as long as possible.
There are no individual/team-level training sessions in the WHL; the athlete can only find it herself. Not every team has a physical training coach;
The team meets a month or a month and a half before the season to resume training and preparation. Anya herself says that in the offseason before Ottawa, she trained with amateur boys;
Anya says that, at best, about a hundred people come to games.
I'd like to add a footnote here. Anya herself played at Dynamo-Neva in St. Petersburg. The games there are free, but they take place at absolutely terrible times – usually on a weekday, around 1 p.m. I attended a recent game in February on a weekend (and I go to both home playoff games); there were fewer than a hundred people, and I think most of them were close to the athletes themselves.
BUT, the WHL recently summarized its regular season attendance figures for 2025-26. This season, a team from Sakhalin joined the league and took the top spot for community engagement. The average attendance for matches is 973, with 11 of the 18 home games having over 1,000 fans. Paid tickets don't prevent crowds from gathering.
If we take the other teams, excluding Sakhalin's statistics, the average attendance is 154 spectators.
8. Anya speculates that the ban on international play has reduced spectator engagement with the national team (I have harsher comments on this topic, based on what I've seen, but I'll remain silent);
9. Body checks are prohibited in the WHL. Anya says the athletes themselves are in favor of the idea of allowing body checks 50/50.
