Manon Rheaume is carrying over her trailblazing women’s hockey career into a front office role in being hired as the general manager of the PWHL’s expansion team in Detroit, the league announced on Friday.
The Canadian Olympian goaltender, and first woman to appear in an exhibition game of any of North America’s four major sports, has spent the past four years working in the NHL's Los Angeles Kings hockey operations department. And Rheaume’s hiring represents a homecoming for the 54-year-old, who spent 11 years in a developmental role for the Detroit-based Little Caesars youth hockey girls’ program.
“She brings an unmatched resume, a championship mindset and a lifelong commitment to growing the women’s game,” said Jayna Hefford, PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations, who oversees the hiring process.
“Her experience at every level of hockey, combined with her leadership and vision, makes her the perfect person to lead PWHL Detroit into its inaugural season,” Hefford added.
Rheaume’s hiring comes a little more than a week after the league announced Detroit as an expansion team. The PWHL has since added two more franchises in Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, and is planning make one more addition in growing to a 12-team league for next season.
Of the PWHL’s nine GMs now in place, seven are women.
“I’m incredibly honored to join the PWHL and help build something special in Detroit,” Rheaume said. “The city has such a deep hockey tradition, and the passion for hockey here is truly special.”
Among her first duties is preparing for an expansion free-agent signing process tentatively scheduled to begin on May 28, followed by the league’s draft, which will be held in Detroit on June 17.
Rheaume is from Beauport, Quebec, and began making her international mark in the early 1990s by signing with Trois-Rivieres of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. In 1992, she tried out for the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning, and allowed two goals on nine shots in one period of a preseason game against St. Louis. A year later, she made a second preseason game appearance against Boston.
Rheaume went on to win a silver medal representing Canada at the 1998 Nagano Games, the first to feature a women’s tournament. She also won gold medals at the 1992 and ’94 world championships.
AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey
FILE - Former professional goaltender Manon Rheaume poses for a photograph with three of her masks Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016 in Detroit. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government faces a prolonged period of uncertainty after a week of maneuvering within the governing Labour Party failed to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer but started the clock on a leadership contest that could last well into the summer.
Although Starmer vowed to fight on after a bruising week in which one Cabinet member resigned, dozens of lawmakers called for the prime minister to quit and his new policy proposals were largely ignored, some observers believe it’s only a matter of time before he steps aside.
The message of the past week “is that Labour seems to have made up its mind that Keir Starmer is going to have to go,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “And he’s going to have to go reasonably quickly, and he’s going to have to be replaced by someone who can, unlike him, connect with the public.”
Weeks of speculation about Starmer's future broke into open rebellion Thursday when Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigned in preparation for a possible leadership bid and the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, declared his intention to return to Parliament. Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced she had cleared up a tax issue that forced her to resign from the Cabinet last year, thus freeing her up as well.
Starmer is under growing pressure to step down after Labour performed dismally in local and regional elections last week, hemorrhaging votes to both the anti-immigrant Reform UK party on the right and the Green Party on the left. The electoral drubbing cemented doubts among many party members about Starmer’s judgment, vision and leadership less than two years after he led Labour to a landslide victory.
But the potential contest to unseat him is on hold for now as the party waits to see if Burnham can win a special election for a seat in Parliament that would allow him to enter the race. If he returns to the House of Commons, Burnham is widely expected to challenge Starmer.
On Friday, Labour's executive body approved Burnham to run for the seat that became available when a Labour lawmaker resigned to make way for the Greater Manchester mayor. That election is expected to be in the next five or so weeks.
As and when a challenge to Starmer emerges, Labour’s National Executive Committee will set the timetable for any leadership election. The most recent contest lasted three months.
The government’s borrowing costs rose Friday and the pound weakened on investor concern about continued disarray in Westminster. The pound has dropped 1.3% against the U.S dollar this week.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed on Friday appealed to party members to step back from the brink of a divisive leadership contest that he said would prevent the government from tackling issues like the cost of living crisis and bolster the prospects of Reform UK.
“This weekend people just need to take a breath, look at what’s gone wrong this week, and come back next week ready to do what we said we’d do — country first, party second — and focus on delivering the change we were elected to deliver,” he told the BBC.
That plea came after a week of political jockeying that overshadowed everything else in Westminster.
The infighting reached a crescendo on Thursday morning when Streeting resigned. While praising Starmer’s “courage and statesmanship” in international affairs, Streeting said he had lost confidence in the prime minister’s leadership because of missteps on domestic issues.
“Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift,” Streeting wrote in a stinging resignation letter.
“Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords,” he added. “You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.”
Streeting stopped short of putting himself forward as the best candidate to lead the party at the next general election, suggesting Starmer should step aside to allow a “broad” field of candidates to debate the future of the party.
That seemed to be a nod to Burnham, a former Cabinet minister who left Parliament in 2017 to run for mayor of Greater Manchester. Burnham has been looking for a way to return to the House of Commons so he can challenge Starmer for the top job.
Josh Simons, a Labour lawmaker from Northern England, provided that opening on Thursday by resigning his seat explicitly to make way for Burnham. But that was only the first step for Burnham. Before he can return to Westminster, Burnham must win a special election to represent Makerfield, a community where Reform UK posted strong results in last week’s local elections.
Burnham acknowledged those challenges on Thursday when he announced his candidacy for the seat.
“I truly do not take a single vote for granted and will work hard to regain the trust of people in the Makerfield constituency, many of whom have long supported our party but lost faith in recent times,” he said in a statement.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
From left, Commander Clair Haynes, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan meet police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
From left, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Commander Clair Haynes, and Commissioner Mark Rowley meet police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, listens to Commander Clair Haynes during a meeting police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham meet with school children at a primary school in Ashton-under-Lyne, north-west England, Monday April 13, 2026. (Paul Ellis/Pool Photo via AP, File)
