The next step in the evolution of the PHWL is its Takeover Tour of nine neutral-site games.
It started Sunday with a game between the Montreal Victoire and Boston Fleet in Seattle, continues Wednesday in Vancouver when the Toronto Sceptres and Victoire face off, and concludes March 29 in St. Louis as the Ottawa Charge and Boston Fleet square off at the Enterprise Center.
It’s all with an eye towards collecting data on these nine sites to eventually select permanent homes for the next PWHL franchises.
IS THERE A DEFINITE TIMELINE FOR EXPANSION?
The easy answer: Not really.
PWHL senior vice-president of business operations Amy Scheer put expansion on the front burner in late October at the espnW Summit stage, confirming the league had begun the expansion process with the goal of adding up to two teams for the start of the 2025-26 season.
Scheer later qualified that statement saying it could be two teams or it could be none for next season, but the process was officially open.
The nine-city Takeover Tour is an indication of markets that have shown an interest in becoming home to the next PWHL team.
WHAT CITIES DOES THE TAKEOVER TOUR INCLUDE?
The PWHL will play games this season at neutral sites in Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Quebec City, Edmonton, Buffalo, Raleigh, Detroit and St. Louis.
WHO WILL MAKE THE ULTIMATE CALL ABOUT THE LEAGUE’S READINESS TO EXPAND?
Obviously, this will be a collective decision involving the league owners the Walter Group, the board, and the PWHL front office.
But in a question about when expansion will eventually become reality, Scheer singled out PWHL senior vice-president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford as a key decision-maker here.
“The most important thing is to never compromise the quality of the play on the ice because it is great,” Scheer said during a conference call with reporters at the beginning of December.
“That’s listening to Jayna and her direction of what we are capable of expanding to and when but we have criteria, we have a model and we will evaluate the criteria as we have discussions and we get the information back from the interested markets.”
WHAT KIND OF INTEREST IS THERE?
As many as 26 different markets had indicated an interest in becoming a home to a PWHL team. That number came out in December and may have possibly grown since then. The league is not prepared to comment on any specifics until they deem the time right to share that information.
IS THERE A FRONT-RUNNER?
Again, the PWHL isn’t about to say one way or the other, but there are indicators. For instance, Detroit is the lone city to host a neutral-site game both last year and this. Little Caesars Arena will be the site of a Minnesota-New York game on March 16 this season. Last season, it hosted a game between Ottawa and Boston and drew a U.S. record crowd for a professional women’s hockey game of 13,376. Detroit headlines the cities we are hearing most about in terms of this first round of expansion, along with Pittsburgh, Chicago and Quebec City.
The unknown is what kind of appetite the league has for western expansion, something that must eventually happen if this league is to achieve full North American coverage. The issue is that the league is currently mostly Eastern based, with Minnesota the furthest member west. A single western expansion team would be at a competitive disadvantage in terms of time spent travelling to and from away games. That would be mitigated by multiple Western cities joining simultaneously. That seems unlikely at this early stage in the league’s existence. That said, the Seattle market has always been a hotbed for women’s sports and did nothing to dispel that notion with 12,608 taking in the Boston Fleet’s win over the Montreal Victoire at Climate Pledge Arena on Sunday.
ANY CHANGES IN THE PLANS REGARDING OWERSHIP?
For the time being, no. “As of today, we will remain single entity,” Scheer said in early December referring to the Walter Group’s ownership of all PWHL teams. “I don’t think the Walter Group and our board would close the door on local ownership. I don’t know what that timeline would be, but for the foreseeable future it will remain single entity.”
WHAT IS GOING TO TIP THE SCALES IN FAVOUR OF ONE PRSPECTIVE CITY OVER ANOTHER?
“Of course, attendance is certainly a part of it,” Scheer said. “I think we are looking at the overall market and overall media size. We are looking at the economic opportunity there – that’s not just attendance and an arena, it’s also partnerships. We’re looking at what is the community involvement there, what does the youth hockey look like there, so we have this wonderful matrix with a weighting scale that puts seven to 10 factors into consideration and once we get the feedback (from the nine neutral-site games) we’ll start to do the weighing and scaling and determine where we think would be best. But certainly, attendance is one of them.”
WHAT DO THE EARLY INDICATORS SAY?
So far the best-selling games have been in the Canadian markets with Vancouver and Edmonton selling out quickly (that’s 19,000-plus and 18,000-plus) while Quebec City is approaching a sellout that would put them over 17,000. Among the U.S. cities, Seattle did very well and similar success is expected in Denver. Beyond that the kind of wow crowds that could tip the scales in favour of a particular market do not appear to be there among the four other cities, though there is certainly time for sales to improve in Raleigh (March 7), Detroit (March 16) and St. Louis (March 29). And of course, Detroit did set that U.S. attendance record last winter.