Emma Greco | |||
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![]() Greco with PWHL Minnesota in 2024 | |||
Born | Burlington, Ontario, Canada | March 6, 1995||
Height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) | ||
Weight | 165 lb (75 kg; 11 st 11 lb) | ||
Position | Defence | ||
Shoots | Left | ||
PWHL team Former teams | Boston Fleet PWHL Minnesota Toronto Six PWHPA Toronto Furies Connecticut Whale Quinnipiac Bobcats | ||
Playing career | 2013–present |
Emma Greco (born March 6, 1995) is a Canadian ice hockey defenceman for the Boston Fleet of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). Greco has been described as a reliable stay-at-home defenceman. [1]
Greco began playing hockey at the age of five, her parents encouraging her to play the sport instead of figure skating. [2] She attended Aldershot School where she played varsity field hockey, soccer, ice hockey, and badminton in addition to playing basketball, volleyball, and softball throughout her high school career. [3] During the later three years of high school, she also played ice hockey with the Toronto Jr. Aeros of the Provincial Women's Hockey League (PWHL), serving as team captain in her final year. As a senior, Greco was named the 2013 Aldershot Female Athlete of the Year and the City of Burlington's High School Female Athlete of the Year. [4]
From 2013 to 2017, she played with the Quinnipiac Bobcats women's ice hockey program in the ECAC Hockey conference of the NCAA Division I, scoring 25 points in 144 games. She scored her first collegiate career goal in February of her third year, the game-winning goal in a 4–0 victory over Rensselaer. That year, she would be named to the ECAC Hockey All-Tournament Team, leading her team in blocked shots. [5]
After graduating, she signed her first professional contract with the Connecticut Whale of the PHF. She picked up two assists in six games during the 2017–18 season with the Whale. Ahead of the 2018–19 season, she left the Whale to return to Canada and sign with the Toronto Furies of the Canadian Women's Hockey League.
After the collapse of the CWHL in May 2019, she joined the newly-formed Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), and spent the 2019–20 season playing with the organisation's Greater Toronto Area (GTA) West hub. She played for Team Knox at the Unifor Showcase in September 2019 and participated in the PWHPA's Equal Sweat Deserves Equal Opportunity rally in Toronto in January 2020. [6]
She returned to the PHF ahead of the 2020–21 NWHL season, signing with the expansion Toronto Six and was one of the first five players to be announced for the team. [7] The leadership for the inaugural season included Greco, who served as one of the alternate captains with Emma Woods, while Shiann Darkangelo appointed as the first team captain in franchise history. [8] Competing in the Six’s first-ever game, a January 23, 2021 affair at Lake Placid’s Herb Brooks Arena versus the Metropolitan Riveters, Greco would be called for interference at the 3:01 mark of the first period, recording the first penalty in franchise history. [9]
During the 2023–24 season she played for PWHL Minnesota where she won the inaugural Walter Cup. On July 9, 2024, she signed a one-year contract with PWHL Boston. [10]
Greco has a bachelor's degree in business and marketing from Quinnipiac University. While pursuing her MBA at Qunnipiac, she played with the Quinnipiac Bobcats women's soccer team for the 2017 season, appearing in 15 games, including 14 starts. [11] [12]
She has been in a relationship with her former Toronto Six and PWHL Minnesota teammate Michela Cava since October 2022. [13]
The history of women's ice hockey in the United States can be traced back to the early 20th century. In the 1920s, the Seattle Vamps competed in various hockey tournaments. In 1916, the United States hosted an international hockey tournament in Cleveland, Ohio, that featured Canadian and American women's hockey teams.
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) was a women's professional ice hockey league in the United States and Canada that operated from March 2015 until June 2023. The league was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), comprising four league-owned teams. Over time, some teams gained independent ownership and the number of teams grew to seven; teams during the league's final season in 2022–23 included the Boston Pride, Buffalo Beauts, Connecticut Whale, Metropolitan Riveters, Minnesota Whitecaps, Montreal Force, and Toronto Six. The Isobel Cup was awarded annually to the league playoff champion.
The Connecticut Whale were a professional ice hockey team based in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). They played in Simsbury, Connecticut at the International Skating Center of Connecticut. The team was established in 2015 as one of the four charter franchises of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), which became the PHF in 2021. Their name and colors paid homage to the Hartford Whalers, a former NHL and WHA franchise based in Connecticut. The team folded along with the PHF in 2023 as part of the creation of a new, unified women's league, the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
The Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Cup, often shortened to Isobel Cup, is the championship trophy that was awarded annually to the now defunct Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) playoff winner. The trophy is named after Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, the daughter of Lord Stanley—former Governor-General of Canada and namesake of the Stanley Cup—and one of the first women known to play the game of ice hockey.
Kelly Babstock is a Canadian-American ice hockey player for the Boston Fleet of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). She has Ojibwe roots and is originally from Little Current on Manitoulin Island, part of the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory.
Shiann Darkangelo is an American professional ice hockey player for the Ottawa Charge of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). She has played at the international level with Team USA and won gold at the 2016 IIHF Women's World Championship with the team. At the NCAA Division I level, she accumulated 42 points with the Syracuse Orange women's ice hockey program during the 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons and registered 60 points with the Quinnipiac Bobcats women's ice hockey program during the 2013–14 and 2014–15 seasons. She was team captain of the Toronto Six roster that won the 2023 Isobel Cup championship.
Kaleigh Fratkin is a Canadian professional ice hockey player for the Boston Fleet of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). The second-longest tenured player and leading scorer among defenders in PHF history, she was the first Canadian player to sign a contract in the league, is a five-time PHF all-star, and is a two-time PHF Defender of the Year in 2020 and 2021. She was also a member of the Boston Pride roster that captured the 2021 and 2022 Isobel Cup, and was one of three 2023 PHF All-Star captains. Previous to the joining the NWHL, she won the Clarkson Cup in 2015 and was the first girl to play boys' midget AAA hockey in British Columbia.
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The Premier Hockey Federation Players' Association (PHFPA), formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League Players' Association (NWHLPA), was a representative body for professional ice hockey players in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). The association was founded in 2015, the year of the league's founding, and disbanded in 2023 after the league was purchased and dissolved as part of the establishment of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). Former PHF players now playing in the PWHL are members of the PWHL Players Association.
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The Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for the promotion of professional women's ice hockey. It was founded in May 2019 following the dissolution of the Canadian Women's Hockey League. PWHPA members expressed dissatisfaction with the operations of the existing professional National Women's Hockey League and vowed to boycott existing women's leagues and to work towards the establishment of a unified, financially sustainable professional league. From 2019 to 2023, the PWHPA organized a series of exhibition seasons, known as the Dream Gap tours, to generate support towards its goal.
Emma Woods is a Canadian professional ice hockey forward for the Toronto Sceptres of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). She was selected 81st overall by PWHL New York in the 2023 PWHL draft.
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