The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is starting its second season and is working to create a larger audience. The league was founded last year and currently consists of six teams: the Boston Fleet, the Toronto Scepters, the Minnesota Frost, the Ottawa Charge, the Montreal Victoire, and the New York Sirens. The Women’s league, while having some similarities to their Men’s hockey counterparts, also has some major differences from the National Hockey League (NHL).
The point system works in the same way, three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime or shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss, and no points for a loss in regulation. Because there are only six teams, the top four in the league move on to fight for the Walter Cup in May. One major difference in the league is the concept of a Jailbreak Goal. This means that if a team has a player in the penalty box serving a minor penalty, can get out early if their team scores a shorthanded goal. This is much different than the NHL where a player can only get out of the penalty box early if the other team scores a powerplay goal.
To help spread awareness of the league this year, all six teams are going on a “Takeover Tour.” This means that the teams will play regular season games in places that don’t have a PWHL team. All teams will participate in at least two of these games.
The American stops of the tour include Buffalo New York, Denver Colorado, Detroit Michigan, Raleigh North Carolina, St. Louis Missouri, and Seattle Washington. Some teams will also be making Canadian stops in Québec City and Vancouver. Almost all of these locations have or have had a NHL team, meaning a large hockey audience exists to market to.
During their first three stops, they already broke records for women’s hockey. On January 12th the Minnesota Frost and Montreal Victoire played here in Colorado at Ball Arena and broke the U.S. attendance record with 14,018 people going to watch.
Multiple times during the game in Denver chants broke out with spectators asking for a team here in Colorado. This shows that people want an expansion of the league. According to ESPN the league will be expanding and gaining up to two new teams for the 2025-2026 season. They state that they are not ruling out any market for the teams. Based on the way the league currently looks, it’s easy to assume that they will choose one place in the United States and one place in Canada.
With an expansion like this, the schedule of the seasons might look different. Currently, there are around four games played a week with each team playing one to two times, whereas in the NHL there are games played almost every day with each team playing around every other day. The postseason might also look slightly different because with four out of the six teams moving on to the postseason, with eight teams there could be six out of eight moving on, or they could keep the model of four teams moving on which would then be half of the league.
This expansion would give more female hockey players an opportunity to play as a career. As of December 17th, 2024, there are 159 players in the league with each team having 23 active players and three reserve players. According to the PWHL the players are all from nine different countries: Canada, America, Czechia, Sweden, Finland, Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland. With the success of the PWHL and of course the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), we might begin to see more women’s leagues for other sports.
