Susanna Tapani is staying put in Boston, and the Seattle Torrent re-signed forward Julia Gosling in opening the next phase of the PWHL’s expansion process on Wednesday.
Tapani is a four-time Olympian representing Finland and signed a two-year contract to return to the Fleet for a third season. Gosling made her Olympic debut representing Canada in February and also signed a two-year contract.
The Walter Cup champion Montreal Victoire re-signed defender Maggie Flaherty to a two-year contract.
The trio now count as their respective team’s fourth protected players. Each of the eight existing teams are allowed to protect three more players — totaling six overall — in Phase 3 of the expansion process.
Meantime, the league’s four expansion teams are allowed to sign three players during this phase, after each added five in Phase 2.
Las Vegas added a sixth player to its expansion roster by signing Seattle defender Megan Carter to a two-year contract.
Carter had a goal and four assists last year, and is on the move for a second straight offseason. She was selected by Seattle in the expansion draft last year following her rookie season in Toronto. The 25-year-old is from Milton, Ontario, and played collegiately at Northeastern, where she was a two-time Hockey East defender of the year.
Las Vegas also added its first goalie, signing Minnesota’s Nicole Hensley to a two-year contract. The two-time Walter Cup champion spent three seasons sharing the staring duties with Maddie Rooney, who was protected by the Frost.
Detroit signed second-year PWHL defender Sydney Bard, who became the first player Vancouver lost to an expansion team.
Tapani’s re-signing was key for a Boston team that lost top-line center Alina Muller to Hamilton this past week. Tapani is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist. She ranked second on the Fleet with nine goals, and fifth with 18 points.
The 25-year-old Gosling finished last season tied for the Torrent lead with 20 points (six goals and 14 assists). She’s from London, Ontario, and was selected sixth overall by Toronto in the 2024 draft out of St. Lawrence University.
The 26-year-old Flaherty carries the distinction of being the league’s only three-time Walter Cup champion after spending her first two seasons in Minnesota. From Lakeville, Minnesota, she had three goals and an assist in nine playoff games and scored a career-best five goals and nine points in 30 regular-season outings.
AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey
FILE - Boston Fleet's Susanna Tapani (77) looks for the puck in the air while Montreal Victoire's Skylar Irving (88) defends during the first period of an PWHL hockey game in Laval, Que., April 17, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
A large burning cross — a historic symbol of hate and intimidation against Black Americans — was discovered in a Chicago park where former President Barack Obama famously delivered his acceptance speech when he was elected the nation’s first Black president.
Tuesday afternoon's act sent shock waves through a city where more than one in four people are Black. Some people drove or walked by, staring, and a video of the cross-burning gained traction online.
The video, taken by a motorist, shows the wooden cross engulfed in bright orange flames as it leans against a tree in Grant Park, located in the core of the city's downtown and near Lake Michigan.
Chicago police urged the public on Wednesday to come forward with any information. A community alert issued by police included an image of a person walking away from the area.
Police said the person was seen “fleeing from the scene” where an object was constructed and burned in the park. The alert provided no update on the arson investigation.
The Chicago Fire Department confirmed the flaming object was a cross and said officials put out the fire.
Officials with a local Catholic church, The Faith Community of Saint Sabina, posted on social media a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who was involved. The Rev. Michael Pfleger, senior pastor, called the cross-burning an act of hate.
“It cannot be tolerated,” Pfleger told TV station FOX 32. “I really believe it should be treated as a hate crime just like a swastika is.”
Keinika Carlton, 43, was driving home from running errands with her daughter and mother-in-law when they saw the cross on fire. She said she felt a combination of shock, sadness and disgust, as well as curiosity.
“Is this a racial thing? Is this a religious thing?” she said. “As Black women, of course, our first thought is racial, because burning crosses are known to be used as a tactic, an act of violence toward Black Americans in the South.”
Carlton estimated the cross was at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall. As they slowed down to shoot a video of the flames, she saw other cars also slowing down and people walking nearby, staring at the cross burning.
While the motive behind the burning cross was not immediately clear, cross burnings in the U.S. have historically been seen as “symbols of hate” that are “inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision written by the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The justices ruled that the First Amendment allows bans on cross burnings only when they are intended to intimidate because the action “is a particularly virulent form of intimidation.”
Alyna Carlton, 22, said she never thought she would see something like that in her lifetime.
“It kind of really opened my eyes, had me realize that I’m not that far removed from the past.”
Gina Miranda Samuels, faculty director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, said the burning of crosses may no longer create the degree of fear it did decades ago — but there's sadness at the reminder of the level of hate that still exists.
“The burning of a cross in Grant Park, personally, does not instill terror,” she said. “If it was on my personal lawn, that would concern me. This doesn’t cause me to want to flee Chicago.”
Miranda Samuels laid some of the blame on the current political climate.
“I do think we’re living in a time when we have a president that stokes this kind of thing and invites this type of stuff,” she said. "People feel emboldened and are invited to see how far they can go.”
Frank Chapman, a Chicago resident and executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, agreed. He pointed to how people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were ultimately not punished. President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.
“The same kind of people got the same white supremacist mentality as a cross-burning,” Chapman said. "So, they figured like they got a license now ... with people pardoned and more or less shaking hands with the devil.”
Next week, Obama will be joined by other former presidents and dignitaries to dedicate his presidential library, named the Obama Center, on a sprawling complex less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Grant Park. The center opens to the public on Juneteenth, the federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the U.S.
This grab from a video taken by motorist Keinika Carlton shows a wooden cross engulfed in bright orange flames as it leans against a tree in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, on Tuesday, July 9, 2026.(Keinika Carlton via AP)
