PWHL Eyes Strategic Expansion as League Enters Third Season
Minnesota vs Toronto, playoff game 3, on May 13th 2024 at Xcel Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota (photo credit John McClellan)
Written by Alexis Crochiere
The PWHL 2024 season opened with six teams across North America and is projected to double its number of franchises in the coming years.
In their inaugural season, the PWHL started off with teams in Boston, Minnesota, New York, Montréal, Ottawa, and Toronto following some rebranding of existing programs. In the 2025-2026 season opening Nov. 21, two new franchises made their debut, including Seattle Torrent and Vancouver Goldeneyes.
Looking towards the future as the league starts its third season, expansion teams emerging as potential candidates like Detroit, Edmonton, and Denver could be on the rise.
The PWHL hosts “Takeover Tours,” a series of regular-season games played in neutral-site cities across the United States and Canada. These events allow the league to evaluate fan engagement, venue suitability, ticket sales, travel logistics, and scheduling demands. By analyzing these factors, league officials can determine which markets are best positioned to support future expansion franchises.
The PWHL will play on neutral ice for 11 matchups this season, in seven locations that have never hosted a game. New host cities include Chicago, Calgary, Washington, D.C., and Dallas.
“In Year One, we launched six teams in just a couple of months. This year we launched two teams in about seven months. We’ll stick to that timeline,” PWHL EVP of business operations Amy Scheer said to Front Office Sports.
Though adding new franchises to the list and new teams to the standings is exciting, it requires significant effort for not only the city but also PWHL administration and the players.
Things like expansion drafts leave uncertainty of players' positions on the teams as well as the crucial marketing campaigns that go along with a new franchise. Designing jerseys, coming up with a team name and logo, and locating a rink all sound exciting and hopeful, but it takes a lot of hard work by the people on the ground setting everything in place and those behind the curtain in higher administration of the league.
Fans in each expansion city are encouraged to take part in the branding process, and Scheer hopes to replicate the model used in Vancouver and Seattle, which followed a six-to-seven-month timeline from announcement to inaugural game.
With 207 active players going into the 2025-2026 season, there are athletes from across the globe representing their countries on PWHL ice. With an average roster size of about 23 athletes, additional teams would allow even more countries and representatives to be brought to the league.
This season, the schedule will overlap with the Winter Olympics, where many star athletes will take leave to represent their home countries in February.
With all 120 regular-season games finding a broadcast home live on air and radio across the US and Canada, the PWHL’s popularity is sure to grow and allow expansion opportunities like the Torrent and Goldeneyes in the near future.
“The more our numbers grow, the more value we have as a league, the more value we have against our partnerships we sell, and the more merchandise we sell,” Scheer said to Front Office Sports. “Those two things—growth and profitability—are not separated. They’re both goals, and both that we continue to embark on.”
