During her first five years playing professional women’s hockey, Kaleigh Fratkin built relationships with dozens of teammates whom she knew shared a common ideology about their sport.

This summer, when Fratkin saw many of those former linemates around Boston, where she lives, the meetings had turned unsettling.

“I personally have had these weird, awkward kind of encounters with friends and former teammates where it’s just kind of avoiding that elephant in the room,” Fratkin said.

That elephant is the splintering of women’s hockey after the closure of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League in May. The departure of the C.W.H.L. left one pro league in North America: the National Women’s Hockey League. But the N.W.H.L.’s slow growth, and its highest announced salary of $15,000, left many players in search of an alternative path.