The Professional Women’s Hockey League will play nine neutral-site games this season as part of the “PWHL Takeover Tour,” the league announced on Monday.
The tour will go across the United States and Canada with stops in Buffalo, Detroit, Raleigh, St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver and Quebec City. A ninth destination has yet to be announced.
The games will largely be played in NHL buildings, save for the 18,000-seat (NHL caliber) Videotron Centre in Quebec City. All six teams — the Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, New York Sirens, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres — will play in at least two of the neutral-site games this season.
“Bringing PWHL games to fans across both countries is a natural next step as we continue building our audience,” Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vice president of business operations, said in a statement. “When exploring potential locations for a PWHL game, the enthusiasm from cities eager to engage with our League was incredibly encouraging. The PWHL Takeover Tour lets us showcase our game and exceptional athletes across a wider North American footprint — an exciting moment for our players and an important move for our business as we consider expansion.”
Last season, the PWHL hosted a successful “Takeover Weekend” with games in Pittsburgh and Detroit in March 2024. The latter game at Little Caesars Arena set a record for attendance at a U.S. professional women’s hockey game with 13,736 fans. The Pittsburgh game, hosted at PPG Paints Arena, was the ninth-most attended game in the regular season. Detroit is the lone repeat site.
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The league also had success in NHL venues outside that weekend, setting an attendance record at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, then breaking said record with 21,205 fans at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
Last month, Scheer announced at the espnW summit that the PWHL was preparing to expand beyond its six existing markets, potentially as early as the 2025-26 season. The league, she said, would be issuing a request for proposals to explore potential locations for new teams across the U.S. and Canada. The hope is to finish gathering those proposals by the end of the calendar year.
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“I think we all understand and agree that there is a market out there for women’s hockey,” Scheer told The Athletic in October. “Detroit and Pittsburgh were both wonderful experiences … We learned a lot in those two games, and I think we’ll continue to go down that type of road to learn this season as well.”
PWHL Takeover Tour schedule
• Sunday, Jan. 5: Montreal vs. Boston at Climate Pledge Arena (Seattle)
• Wednesday, Jan. 8: Montreal vs. Toronto at Rogers Arena (Vancouver)
• Sunday, Jan. 12: Montreal vs. Minnesota at Ball Arena (Denver)
• Sunday, Jan 19: Ottawa vs. Montreal at Videotron Centre (Quebec City)
• Sunday, Feb. 16: Toronto vs. Ottawa at TBA
• Sunday, Feb. 23: Boston vs. New York at KeyBank Center (Buffalo)
• Friday, March 7: Ottawa vs. Minnesota at Lenovo Center (Raleigh)
• Sunday, March 16: Minnesota vs. New York at Little Caesars Arena (Detroit)
• Saturday, March 29: Ottawa vs. Boston at Enterprise Center (St. Louis)
(Picture of the Takeover Weekend game in Pittsburgh: Justin Berl / Getty Images)
