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One of the fastest-growing professional leagues is looking to expand even more, and soon.
In the past week, the Professional Women’s Hockey League has announced plans to expand to Vancouver and Seattle, adding to the league’s Original Six – Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montreal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres. With the two new franchises set to begin play next season, the PWHL will have eight teams competing in its third year of operation.
However, they apparently aren’t done yet.
As first reported by John Wawrow of the Associated Press on Wednesday, the league is already looking ahead to the 2026-27 campaign with the hopes of adding two more teams by Year 4.
During a media availability following the announcement of the Seattle franchise, PWHL Executive Vice President of Business Operations Amy Scheer neither confirmed nor denied the idea of adding two more teams in 2026, but reiterated that the league has a plan to continue growing.
“What I will confirm is this is the first step in a multi-year process,” Scheer said. “We are eager to expand and to grow our sport and our audience. As of today, what I can confirm is that we are an eight-team league and proud to be eight teams, and when we know more about when and where we’ll expand, then we’ll be happy to share that information.”
Jayna Hefford, Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations, assures that, with 46 new jobs becoming available next season, the level of play will continue to grow.
“The depth of talent is there,” Hefford said. “We continue to see interest coming into our league out of both university and college systems, as well as internationally.”
Hefford mentioned that the league’s growing footprint will give more opportunities off the ice as well.
“I think the other thing that’s really great, and I think we’re proud of, is that the additional opportunities this is going to provide for coaches, for officials, for media members, for marketing folks…the new opportunities that are going to exist because of these two teams. I think that’s all very exciting.”
It’s crazy to think how fast the PWHL has grown, especially since it only began operation in August 2023. The league had a successful opening season, breaking women’s hockey attendance records in Toronto and Montreal, capped off with exciting playoffs that saw Minnesota win the first-ever Walter Cup.
Then, so far in year two, the league saw a fantastic turnout for the Takeover Tour, with a total of 123,601 fans attending the nine contests. Vancouver and Seattle established themselves as frontrunners for expansion with great crowds at Rogers Arena and Climate Pledge Arena in January.
There were many markets that were speculated to be in the running for this first wave of expansion. Detroit has had two Takeover games over the first two seasons, and fans came out in droves. In both events, both held in March, the game broke the U.S. women’s pro hockey attendance record both times, with 14,288 coming to Little Caesars Arena to see the Sirens beat the Frost on March 16.
Another attractive market would be Quebec City. 18,259 packed inside a sold-out Videotron Centre to see border rivals go at it on Jan. 19, with the Victoire beating the Charge.
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Maple Leafs have strong reason to believe they can sign Connor McDavid
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Steelers Have Troubling Trend Surrounding Nick Herbig
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Kyle Shanahan has surprising Brock Purdy update — 49ers are confident in QB situation regardless
Commanders' under-the-radar veteran is stepping up to fix massive weakness
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