The PWHL will play neutral-site games in six different Canadian cities this season, as the league plans to add new teams as soon as next season.
For the second season in a row, the eight-team league will play games in Quebec City (Jan. 11, Vancouver vs. Montreal) and Edmonton (Dec. 27, Minnesota vs. Vancouver and April 6, Boston vs. Vancouver).
Four new Canadian cities have also been added to the league’s Takeover Tour this season: Halifax (Dec. 17, Toronto vs. Montreal and Jan. 11, Ottawa vs. Boston), Hamilton (Jan. 3, Seattle vs. Toronto), Winnipeg (March 22, Montreal vs. Ottawa) and Calgary (April 1, Toronto vs. Ottawa).
More than 123,000 fans attended games during the league’s nine-stop Takeover Tour last season. That included games in Vancouver and Seattle, which the league selected as its two expansion franchises ahead of the this upcoming season.
This time around, the league will play 16 neutral-site games across 11 sites in North America.
Some of those could end up being the next PWHL expansion markets, as the league has made it clear that adding teams in Vancouver and Seattle was the first step in growing the league’s footprint.
“We are going to expand at least two to four teams next year,” the PWHL’s executive vice president of business operations, Amy Scheer, told members of Ottawa City Council last month. “We are in growth mode. This league is exploding.”
Officials in Quebec City, in particular, have been vocal about wanting a PWHL team to play out of the Videotron Centre, an arena designed for an NHL team that has never come. Infrastructure has been a major factor in where the PWHL places its teams.
A game in Quebec City last season sold out, drawing more than 18,000 fans. Most were cheering for the Montreal Victoire, which would be a natural rival for a PWHL Quebec City team.
Martin Tremblay, the president of Gestev, which manages and operates the city-owned Videotron Centre, said the game this upcoming season is “a unique opportunity to promote women’s hockey.”
“The resounding success of the last game in January, played in front of a sold-out crowd, shows just how alive and well the passion for this sport is in our market,” Tremblay said.
Edmonton, meanwhile, was home to a pro women’s hockey team in the Western Women’s Hockey League, which stopped operating in 2011.
An Edmonton team would help fill in the map between the new west coast teams, the Minnesota Frost and the rest of the league, which is based on the east coast.
A game inside Edmonton’s Rogers Place last season drew more than 17,500 fans.
The league will visit Calgary for the first time, but women’s hockey has a long history there, too. Most recently, there was the Calgary Inferno, which played in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. The Inferno won the final league championship before that league shut down in 2019.
For years, it’s was also where Hockey Canada would set up shop in the months ahead of the Olympics. The best female hockey players in Canada would live in Calgary as they trained together and battled for a coveted spot on the Olympic team.
Halifax, meanwhile, has never been home to a pro women’s hockey team. But a game between the Canadian and American national teams filled the Scotiabank Centre last winter.
It’s one of only two Canadian cities to host two games this season, joining Edmonton. They’ll both be inside Scotiabank Centre, the downtown arena that’s home to the QMJHL’s Halifax Mooseheads and which could be the perfect size for a PWHL team.
Scotiabank Centre’s Instragram account posted welcome videos from a number officials when the Takeover Tour schedule was announced on Monday, including Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston and Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore.
“We are the perfect location for this incredible moment in women’s hockey,” Houston said.
Beyond Canada, the Takeover Tour will visit Denver, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C.
PWHL games in both Denver and Detroit have broken U.S. attendance records in recent years, and both would appear to be strong candidates for a PWHL team someday.
“The passion and support from fans, and the enthusiasm from cities eager to engage with our league, have fueled our ambition to grow the tour for season three,” Scheer said in a statement on Monday.
