Marie-Philip Poulin stood at the blue series on the Bell Centre, combating again tears.
She had simply been offered to a global report family in Montreal and the enthusiasts had been giving her a rowdy ovation. Poulin, the most productive ladies’s hockey participant on the planet for just about a decade, usually will get the loudest pregame cheer, particularly in her house province of Quebec. However this applause — over 20 seconds lengthy and delivered through 21,105 population — used to be other.
“Honestly, I didn’t know what to do, how to react, the emotions were so high,” Poulin mentioned. “Having the Bell Centre packed for women’s hockey … it (felt like) we finally made it.”
That April 20 duel destitute the all time attendance report for ladies’s hockey, one of the milestones for the inaugural Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League season. Since its inauguration in January 2024, the long-awaited six-team league that includes the arena’s perfect avid gamers has in large part been heralded as a luck. Tens of millions of audience tuned in for video games; attendance data had been many times i’m ready and damaged; and insist for tickets in some markets used to be so top that groups have already moved into larger venues. Simply extreme time, the league introduced that it used to be getting ready for growth as quickly because the 2025-26 season — faster than expected.
However there have been bumps alongside the best way, and with the coming of the PWHL’s 2d season, which starts on Saturday, big-picture questions loom. Now that the league is now not glowing emblem unutilized, can it uphold certain momentum? And what must occur to i’m ready the PWHL up for long-term luck?
5 days into the PWHL’s inaugural season, Stan Kasten had distinguishable plethora.
Kasten used to be on a excursion across the league, making stops at maximum groups’ house openers all through the 1st moment of the season. He visited Toronto for the 1st PWHL duel on Jan. 1, attended a sell-out in Ottawa the after future, and watched video games in Unutilized York and Boston.
Later Kasten were given to Minnesota for the group’s house opener, which i’m ready a ladies’s professional hockey attendance report with over 13,000 enthusiasts on the Xcel Power Middle.
“That was the day I knew this was going to work,” Kasten mentioned.
The longtime sports activities government and president of the Los Angeles Dodgers turned into a central determine in ladies’s hockey next Dodgers majority proprietor Mark Walter and his spouse, Kimbra, indubitably to bankroll a unutilized skilled ladies’s hockey league.
The PWHL got here in combination in a six-month dash. Six markets and venues had been selected. A 72-game time table used to be assembled. Basic managers and coaches and league body of workers had been rented; avid gamers had been signed and drafted. With so slight month, groups performed with out conventional names, emblems or jerseys.
“I will look back in amazement that we did it,” Kasten mentioned. “We set the six months as our goal. … I was too dumb to know it wasn’t possible.”
The inaugural duel on Jan. 1, between Toronto and Unutilized York, used to be offered out, albeit at Toronto’s 2,600-seat venue. Tennis legend Billie Jean King — who sits at the league’s advisory board — dropped the ceremonial puck along PWHL senior vp of hockey operations Jayna Hefford. The sport reached over 3 million perspectives on Canadian tv networks and the league’s YouTube wave.
“It was that moment where you’re like, ‘my childhood dream is coming true,’” mentioned Toronto defender Jocelyne Larocque. “I had tears in my eyes because as a kid, my dream was to play pro hockey. And then, as you get a bit older, you think because I’m a woman, this isn’t going to happen for me.”
The after future, the league destitute an attendance report for a ladies’s skilled hockey duel in Ottawa with over 8,000 enthusiasts at TD Playground Area. That used to be the report Minnesota smashed best 4 days then.
Lovers packed the Tsongas Middle in Lowell, Cluster., for a Minnesota-Boston PWHL duel all through the 1st moment of the league’s inaugural season. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Pictures)
The honeymoon segment didn’t finish next the 1st few weeks of the season both. The league i’m ready a global report for attendance in Toronto (19,285) in February at Scotiabank Area, which used to be damaged two months then on the Bell Centre when Poulin gained the ovation.
General, the league beat its personal little attendance projections for the inaugural 12 months. In step with Kasten, the inner projection used to be round 1,000 enthusiasts in line with duel. The original determine — over 5,000 — is a big accomplishment bearing in mind that earlier ladies’s hockey leagues most commonly struggled on the gate.
“Going into this season, no one really knew what to expect. We knew that we had a product that was worth watching and that we were going to do the best we could to showcase women’s hockey,” mentioned Toronto goalie Kristen Campbell. “The fan support (exceeded) my expectations.”
Video games during the season had been uptempo, extremely professional and strangely bodily. They had been additionally simple to look at, since each and every duel used to be to be had on YouTube for separate — with top quality broadcast manufacturing paid for by the league.
“I just don’t think a lot of people understood the skill level and the athleticism of these players,” mentioned Ottawa GM Mike Hirshfeld. “And I think once they saw that, it became really attractive.”
The league landed a number of partnerships with main manufacturers — equivalent to Breeze Canada, Scotiabank, Bauer and Barbie — and labored with the NHL, committing to All-Celebrity Weekend and taking part in two neutral-site video games at NHL venues in Pittsburgh and Detroit.
However the inaugural season used to be some distance from highest.
PWHL products flew off the cabinets in spite of a dearth of group names or emblems, however the rollout used to be criticized on account of provide problems and the restricted measurement levels.
The Unutilized York franchise performed in 3 other rinks and struggled to attract enthusiasts, completing with the worst attendance within the league. One duel in Bridgeport, Conn., had best 728 enthusiasts — the league’s best duel with fewer than 1,000 all season.
And simply 9 days next Minnesota gained the first-ever Walter Cup, the league introduced it used to be judicial separation tactics with the group’s normal supervisor, Natalie Darwitz, “effective immediately.”
Some experiences prompt there used to be a rift between Darwitz — a legend of Minnesota hockey and now a Hockey Corridor of Repute inductee — and head lecturer Ken Klee, with some influential avid gamers siding with Klee. On the other hand, the league maintained the verdict got here next a evaluation of the group’s operations that discovered “there wasn’t a path forward with the current personnel in place.”
Nonetheless, when the PWHL hosted the 2024 draft and awards in St. Paul, Minn., 4 days next Darwitz departed, enthusiasts had been dispirited. Klee, who used to be chargeable for the group’s draft selections, used to be booed at issues all through the evening. He used to be additionally closely criticized for settling on Britta Curl, who stirred controversy within the weeks as much as the draft for her social media task.
When requested about Darwitz’s depart this time, Minnesota captain Kendall Coyne Schofield mentioned it used to be a league determination. Klee, in the meantime, mentioned the group used to be involved in transferring on.
“It’s pro hockey. Things happen,” he mentioned. “We’re excited to get the season going.”
Kendall Coyne Schofield raised the Walter Cup next Minnesota gained the PWHL’s inaugural league championship. (Troy Parla / Getty Pictures)
If the PWHL’s first season used to be about celebrating the league’s lifestyles, its sophomore 12 months, simply days away, will focal point on keeping up momentum era residue in startup form.
“We are far from a finished product,” mentioned Kasten.
The league has taken a number of certain steps in its first actual offseason.
In September, it unveiled group names and symbols; jerseys had been exempted previous this time. The coinciding products choices have incorporated extra design choices and measurement levels.
Unutilized York has moved right into a unmarried number one venue — the Prudential Middle in Newark, N.J., the place the group performed in entrance of its greatest family (5,132) extreme season — era Toronto and Montreal have moved into larger venues full-time.
“We always hoped and planned to be in bigger buildings, but I don’t think we expected it so quickly,” mentioned Hefford. “But that demand was real and it wasn’t just a blip. It wasn’t just inaugural-year excitement. And we’re seeing that in the response from fans this year in terms of ticket sales and memberships.”
Even with an 8,150 capability at Coca-Cola Coliseum, Toronto’s season-ticket memberships offered out for a 2d 12 months in a row. And Kasten mentioned the league expects reasonable attendance to extend.
The PWHL may even play games 9 neutral-site video games, most commonly in NHL constructions together with Seattle, Vancouver, Denver and St. Louis.
“It’s a reinforcement of what we perceive as widespread and growing interest around our sport,” he mentioned of the neutral-site video games. “I can’t say it enough times, these women, these world-class athletes who have been overlooked for so long, are finally seeing the recognition they should have been receiving for years and years.”
Most likely the most important building of the offseason is that the league is already taking a look so as to add as much as two groups once 2025-26. Extreme season, league management ceaselessly attempted to go off questions on growth however Kasten mentioned the luck of Hour 1 satisfied league leaders to start out the method faster.
“I don’t know if we do it,” he mentioned. “But we’re looking at it because the interest is really there.”
The league has despatched out over 20 calls for proposals to attainable growth companions, mentioned Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vp of industrial operations.
A significant motive force of PWHL growth is the inflow of world avid gamers. In June, over a quantity world avid gamers — from Finland, Sweden, Russia, Czechia and extra — had been drafted, along dozens extra avid gamers from the NCAA. That such a lot of avid gamers have made up our minds to build the bounce to North The us is an encouraging signal. Maximum supremacy avid gamers elected to stick in Europe extreme season and observe the unutilized league’s journey from afar.
“It became more clear what the league is going to look like and so now, I feel like everybody is trying to get a spot here,” mentioned Workforce Germany ahead Laura Kluge, who used to be invited to Toronto’s coaching camp next going undrafted in June. “The goal is to come here and play because (it’s) the most professional league out there.”
One of the vital main opinions of the PWHL extreme season used to be that — with the seven-team Premier Hockey Federation shutting ill in June 2023 — the ecosystem for ladies’s hockey in North The us turned into too tiny, with only a few roster spots and building alternatives. Growth would cure that with out diluting the product, given how a lot ability will have to be coming from Europe and the NCAA over the after two years.
How growth may paintings nonetheless rest to be distinguishable. All six wave PWHL groups, in addition to the league itself, are owned through the Walters.
The one-entity possession fashion used to be crucial, Kasten mentioned, to the league getting up and operating as temporarily because it did. However the query rest: Will the industry in the end outgrow unilateral keep watch over?
Ladies’s hockey has tried person possession within the age. The untouched Nationwide Ladies’s Hockey League folded, partly, as a result of homeowners prohibited perceptible the worth in making an investment. The PHF offered some groups, however the league’s primary monetary backers — John and Johanna Boynton — nonetheless owned 4 of the league’s seven groups.
“I love how it has worked for us so far. I don’t know when that model stops being the most efficient, if ever,” Kasten mentioned. “Could that change in the future? I suppose it could, but we don’t have any plans to change it now.”
For the entire journey made all through this offseason, there are some longer-term benchmarks left.
The PWHL does no longer have the type of media rights offer which can be conventional in males’s professional sports activities, and the ones extra not too long ago signed in ladies’s skilled basketball and football.
“Let’s face it, until we get a mature media plan and media revenue we won’t really be a full-fledged league,” mentioned Kasten.
Extreme season, each and every duel used to be broadcast at the league’s YouTube channel. This season, on the other hand, Canadian audiences gained’t have get right of entry to to the PWHL’s YouTube wave. The ones streaming rights are actually unique to the league’s Canadian broadcast companions, which come with TSN, CBC and Amazon High. U.S. broadcast rights have no longer been introduced. Pulling video games off YouTube in Canadian markets is a strike to get right of entry to and visibility, however the league is predicted to build extra money from an building up in rights charges.
“The change is positive for the league because it helps us grow in terms of stability,” Scheer mentioned. “It helps us grow to ensure that the league is on the path to long term health and that women’s hockey will be here for good.”
The largest problem for the league goes to be the salary hole that exists between supremacy avid gamers and people who build up the vast majority of each and every group’s roster, because of how the collective-bargaining word of honour i’m ready participant repayment and roster development.
In Hour 1, the supremacy six avid gamers on each and every group had been required to build a minimum of $80,000 on assured three-year word of honour, in line with the CBA. In the meantime, the league minimal used to be i’m ready at $35,000, which can building up through 3 % to $36,050 in 2024-25. Many avid gamers’ salaries are nearer to league minimal on non-guaranteed word of honour. And given how a lot of the wage cap has already been allocated to supremacy avid gamers, incoming avid gamers — or separate brokers deserving of raises — will likely be feeling the squeeze till the ones word of honour expire next the 2025-26 season.
It’s a trickier defect to cure with the CBA locked in till July 31, 2031. Nevertheless it’s one thing the league will inevitably be judged on if the industry continues to develop.
In spite of these types of questions, most likely the most important alternate in Hour 2 will likely be a focal point no longer such a lot on milestones and data however extra at the duel itself.
“There were a lot of firsts last year and a lot of emotional moments — moments that were bigger than hockey,” mentioned Poulin. “This year is about making it normal that we play in bigger buildings that sell out, that people are excited (to be there). And now we’re just going to play hockey because that’s our job.”
(Representation: Meech Robinson / The Athletic. Pictures: Mark Blinch, Minas Panagiotakis, Bruce Bennett / Getty Pictures; Kevin Sousa / NHLI by way of Getty Pictures; M. Anthony Nesmith / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Pictures)
