Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews featured in PWHL MVP Taylor Heise's 2024 archives dump

Minnesota Frost superstar Taylor Heise has had a year to remember. Named the MVP in last season’s PWHL playoffs while the Frost went on to win the inaugural Walter Cup, Heise has made some special memories in 2024.

On Wednesday, Heise shared a carousel of pictures with some of the highlights from last year.

“24 archives: those that were missed,” she wrote in the caption.

One of the images showed Taylor Heise sitting in an outdoor cafe looking at her phone, dressed in a casual black outfit. The next featured a Team USA locker room click where Heise posed alongside Hannah Bilka and Tessa Janecke.

Heise also posted a black-and-white picture where she stood beside Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews in evening wear. The next image saw Grace Zumwinkle and Taylor Heise posing together on the ice in Minnesota Frost gear.

She followed it up with a black-and-white shot of herself in a Frost jersey and helmet on the ice. Another image showed fellow Minnesota athlete Rob Parker poised to shoot a basketball at a hoop outdoors.

Heise can be seen holding a red rose in her hand in the next image of the carousel while wearing a black scarf with a black shirt. She also posted a photo from the sidelines during a Minnesota college football game, possibly at her alma mater. Heise closed the carousel with a final shot taken on the ice alongside PWHL Montreal’s Abigail Boreen.

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Taylor Heise initially wanted to be a basketball player

Taylor Heise might be one of the biggest stars in the PWHL right now, but her journey to becoming a hockey star didn’t start the way one might expect. Born into a basketball-loving family, she initially thought her future would be on the hardwood.

Even her parents were college basketball players at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and she thought someday she would too.

“I knew the basketball courts pretty well,” Heise said. “I knew where every single one of them was in my hometown. The NHL never made it on our TV as kids because the NBA was always on or we’d be watching college hoops.

“My mom and dad played college basketball at UW-River Falls, and both my brothers play college basketball. So that was just kind of our family thing.”

That all changed when Heise found a flyer in her school backpack inviting kids to try hockey.

“But then I got a newsletter in my backpack at age 7 or 8 about coming to play hockey and thought, ‘oh, hockey sounds fun.’ So for me, it started as just something fun to do,” she said.

She went on to become the 2018 Ms. Hockey in Minnesota and won the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Award in 2022. That same year, she led the U.S. National Team in points at the Women’s World Championship and never looked back.