Les Canadiennes de Montreal's Hilary Knight, top, collides with the Calgary Inferno goal under a challenge from Inferno's Kacey Bellamy and goaltender Alex Rigsby before Jill Saulnier's disallowed goal during third-period hockey game action in the Clarkson Cup in Toronto, Ontario, Sunday, March 24 , 2019. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)

By JOHN WAWROW

AP Hockey Writer

Hilary Knight put aside the jet lag and fresh memories of helping the United States win its latest world hockey championship to begin looking ahead to next season.

Yes, the star forward intends on playing professionally in October. The only question Knight can’t answer is where.

“Yeah, exactly,” she told The Associated Press by phone this week, shortly after returning home to Idaho after a 2-1 shootout victory over host Finland in the gold-medal game Sunday.

Knight is suddenly one of some 100 players without a place to play after the six-team Canadian Women’s Hockey League last month abruptly announced it was ceasing operations as of May 1. Knight had just completed her first full season playing for the CWHL franchise in Montreal after spending two seasons with Boston of the U.S.-based National Women’s Hockey League.

Knight is in no hurry to rush back to the NWHL, acknowledging she left the league in part by how the league operated, including cutting players’ salaries in half a month into the 2016-17 season. With the CWHL’s collapse due to financial reasons, the 29-year-old said she prefers taking a contemplative step back before determining what’s best for her and the sport.

“I don’t think either model has it figured out, to be honest,” Knight said, referring to the CWHL, which operated as a nonprofit, and the private investor-backed NWHL.

“We want to be confident in something we’re endorsing, and that’s one of the reasons I moved to the CWHL,” she added. “And now, there’s a lot of different open doors, and we just have to figure out which makes sense for the future.”

The five-team NWHL swiftly announced its intention to expand to Toronto and Montreal next season, but players on both sides of the border are using the CWHL’s demise as a starting point for a big-picture discussion on the game’s future, and demanding they have a say in it.

“I think it’s kind of opened our eyes to something that we always knew was there, and to seize the opportunity to really ask for more for our sport,” said goalie Liz Knox, the CWHL Players’ Association co-chair.

“I see more often, women, especially female athletes, being told to be grateful for opportunity. And certainly we are,” she added.

“But at some point that line of being grateful has to be broken to ask for more or to demand for more. … There’s got to be better out there for us.”

Without going into detail, the 30-year-old Knox said there have already been “a handful” of proposals kicked around in the three weeks since the CWHL announcement.