PWHL says it could add as many as two teams for 2025-26 season

Enlargement is on the desk for the six-team Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League, and executives aren’t inserting limitations on which North American markets they’ll contemplate in a bid so as to add as many as two franchises for the 2025-26 season.

The one certainty is a imaginative and prescient of the timing being proper to construct on the assist the PWHL generated in its inaugural 12 months, and the expansion the league initiatives getting into its second season, which opens on Nov. 30.

“I don’t suppose we rule out any market,” senior vp of hockey operations Jayna Hefford instructed The Related Press on Tuesday. “It is a good alternative for us to be taught and proceed to discover. So all the things’s on the desk proper now.”

To bolster how open-ended the PWHL’s enlargement search will likely be, senior VP for enterprise operations Amy Scheer instructed the AP the league has focused greater than 20 markets to be issued requests for proposals for enlargement by subsequent week. And that doesn’t embrace further markets that may strategy the league for consideration.

“I believe we wish to be an open ebook, and I believe we wish to be open to issues that we haven’t thought of or issues that we haven’t thought-about,” Scheer mentioned. “Till we’ve got the info and the information and the conversations, we may be stunned. So let’s go for it.”

The preliminary timeline requires requests for proposals to be returned by the top of December to find out curiosity earlier than assessing every market. Although the purpose is including two groups by subsequent 12 months, Hefford and Scheer wouldn’t decide to that being a certainty.

Scheer mentioned geography received’t be a limitation for a league that at the moment has groups primarily based in Boston; Newark, New Jersey; St. Paul, Minnesota; Toronto; Montreal; and Ottawa, Ontario. Neither will a market’s affiliation with an NHL group, although each elements will likely be thought-about.

The one components to assist information the search, Scheer mentioned, will likely be market dimension, entry to services, financial partnership alternatives and fan base potential.

Hefford wouldn’t rule out contemplating Southern California or Seattle as prospects, saying: “It is a good alternative for us to be taught and proceed to discover.”

Two potential candidates are Detroit and Pittsburgh, the place the PWHL performed neutral-site video games final season. 9 extra neutral-site video games are scheduled for this season, although the league has but to say the place they’ll be held.

Within the U.S., Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia could be considered candidates after each had been beforehand thought-about, with Chicago and Denver additionally choices.

In Canada, Quebec Metropolis already has introduced its intention of being a candidate. Calgary could be a possible possibility, with the town beforehand being house to the Inferno from 2011 to 2019, earlier than the Canadian Ladies’s Hockey League folded.

The timing for enlargement comes with the league having a full offseason to catch its collective breath after having six month final 12 months to basically begin from scratch to open play on Jan. 1. The PWHL obtained its begin in late June 2023, when Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Mark Walter agreed to finance the league whereas shopping for out its North American competitor, the Premier Hockey Federation.

The PWHL averaged almost 5,500 followers over 72 regular-season video games and set a ladies’s professional hockey document for attendance, with 21,105 turning out for a sport between Toronto and Montreal held on the NHL’s Canadiens’ house area. The league reached sponsorship offers with corporations together with Scotiabank, Air Canada, Uncover and Hyundai, whereas having every sport broadcast in native markets together with a streaming rights cope with YouTube, which drew 113,000 subscribers.

Simply as vital is how enlargement would deal with a right away want in opening roster spots to be crammed by a rising variety of European gamers looking for to compete in North America, and the subsequent crop of U.S. school graduates. In June, 167 gamers representing 19 international locations declared being eligible for a seven-round draft through which simply 42 had been chosen.

“The expertise pool is barely going to proceed to develop,” Hefford mentioned.

The PWHL is centrally managed, with every group operated by the league. There’s long-term stability with Walter committing lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to construct the league and with gamers working beneath an eight-year collective bargaining settlement operating by way of July 2031.

This season options an expanded schedule with every group taking part in 30 video games, up from 24 final 12 months. Past this season, Scheer mentioned the league is contemplating holding an outside sport in addition to taking part in video games in Europe.

Enlargement was all the time into account, although Scheer burdened the league is taking a affected person strategy.

“We are going to make the appropriate choices primarily based on progress for hockey, monetary choices, what’s one of the best ways to maneuver ahead,” she mentioned. “No person right here is making rash choices.”

Hefford wouldn’t rule out future rounds of enlargement, with out saying what number of groups could be splendid for a league nonetheless in its early levels.

“We all know we wish to develop,” Hefford mentioned. “However I’ve a extremely laborious time throwing out a quantity proper now.”

___

AP Ladies’s Hockey: