Mikyla Grant-Mentis' road to success was a rocky one but that didn't stop her from climbing that mountain named fear.
Grant-Mentis, born in 1998, found her way from being a little girl from a small city in Ontario to a PWHL athlete currently playing for the Montreal Victoire as a forward. Growing up in Brampton, she was a toddler when she temporarily settled on being an entertainer because her parents did not want her to play any physical sport.
“They made my twin brother and my older brother join hockey and didn’t allow me to play hockey, I had to be a dancer,” she said.
Grant-Mentis hated being a dancer and every time she would go to dance class, she was never locked into the choreography.
“I stood in the corner at every single practice, and just kept asking to play hockey, to play hockey,” she said.
After speaking up and not hiding exactly what her interest was, Grant-Mentis' parents gave her an ultimatum at her last dance recital.
“My parents said if I did the whole recital...they would make me play hockey,” she said.
Even though she was upset and standing in the corner, the four-year-old accepted their request because she knew the routine step by step.
“After I completed my routine, I said to my parents, 'Okay so when should I go get my skates?' and they took me straight to the store,” she said.
Grant-Mentis started playing hockey at the age of four, all the way up to when she was 14 years old, with her twin brother.
Once her twin brother hit the teenager stage, he started to do his own thing and that’s when Grant took it upon herself to make sure she fulfilled her dream.
Grant-Mentis played four years of NCAA Division I ice hockey with the Merrimack Warriors of Merrimack College, a member institution of the Hockey East conference, located in North Andover, Mass.
“I received a full scholarship in 2016 to play down there. The junior league that we have here in Ontario for women is what opened the door for me,” she said.
It was while she played in that junior league that she was noticed and scouted to play overseas.
She is the all-time leading scorer of the Merrimack Warriors women's ice hockey team. In 2021, she became the first Black player to win the Most Valuable Player award of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF).
Her role model was her father James Mentis, who played ball hockey for Team Canada and remains active with the Brampton Express of the Greater Toronto Ball Hockey League.
Her father was successful in ball hockey. He was the captain of Team Canada for multiple years even playing when he was 40, 50 years old.
“He was like a really big player for Team Canada and everything in ball hockey, so we kind of wanted to follow in his footsteps for that,” she said.
Grant-Mentis signed a one-year, $80 000 deal to return to the Buffalo Beauts in 2022. This deal made her to be the highest-paid player in PHF history.
After the PHF folded following the 2022-23 season and the founding of the PWHL, Grant-Mentis was undrafted but signed a free-agent contract with PWHL Ottawa.
After an underwhelming start to the season and following a stretch of healthy scratches, Grant-Mentis was released from her contract with PWHL Ottawa.
She then signed a reserve player contract with PWHL Montreal on March 10, 2024.
Grant-Mentis is one of three Black women currently playing in the PWHL and she says it's uneasy with her for a few reasons.
“When I was growing up, I was the only Black player playing, there was one girl older than me, and my cousin that I knew of playing hockey," she said. “So, I’ve been used to seeing like obviously a lot of white people around the rink and that’s the only people I’ve seen around the rink."
Grant-Mentis believes that as the league's recognition strengthens, it will attract all races instead of being known as a white-dominated sport.
"There are a lot of Black people in stands here in Montreal when I play, even in other places too," she said. "So, like that just shows that you know, it is kind of creeping in now, it's just going to take time for more players to develop and get to this level."
Grant-Mentis says she has had "the door" shut in her face numerous times, but that didn't stop her from achieving her goals.
“I think a lot of people are shut down in their lives, just by, you know, higher-ups or superiors, and like I’ve been shut down a lot of times in my hockey career," she said.
“Every time I’m just like you know what I want to be this so I will go somewhere else and make it happen for myself,” she said.
When asked what advice she would give the next generation of girls, Grant-Mentis says it would be if you want it, go get it.
"If they want to be the best player in the world, they must make sure they do the actions to be the best player and do not let anybody knock them down from that," she said.
