By Scott Lowe - MYHockeyRankings.com

Sports history is littered with stories of athletes, coaches, teams and leagues that came out of nowhere to capture our attention for a short period of time before disappearing from our radar forever. There have been countless “flashes in the pan,” “one-hit wonders,” and “flavors of the month” that have turned into “sophomore slumps” or worse.

Feel free to attach any cliché you prefer to any of these situations.

Many of us probably remember “Linsanity,” Mark Fidrych, Buster Douglas, Ickey Woods and the old United States Football League. Hockey even had a guy named Jonathan Cheechoo, who led the National Hockey League in goals with 56 to go along with 37 assists one year then dropped to 69 points the following season before recording 37, 28 and 14 points during the next three years and disappearing from the league to never return.

That’s what many folks were expecting from the Professional Women’s Hockey League after an inaugural season that saw the league blow away everyone’s expectations on and off the ice. The incredible first-year success even surprised the founders of the league and the PWHL’s front-office executives.

Of course, as with most success stories in 2024, the PWHL was met with plenty of skepticism from around the sports world as well as the general public heading into Year 2. Unfortunately, there probably were more than a few people hoping the league would struggle since that’s where we seem to be as a society in 2024.

What could the PWHL possibly do for an encore?

How could the league build on the tremendous momentum it generated between January and the end of May last spring when it established six women’s hockey attendance records, exceeded its internal attendance projections by more than 4,000 fans per game, played games that were viewed by millions worldwide and crowned its Minnesota franchise as the first Walter Cup Champion?

Before we go further, here is a quick reminder of the league’s Season 1 successes:

• The PWHL set six women’s hockey attendance records, including the world and American records. More than 21,000 fans attended a game at Montreal’s Belle Centre April 20.
• An average of more than 10,000 fans attended neutral-site games in Pittsburgh and Detroit.
• The PWHL brought on more than 40 corporate sponsors.
• More than 238-million social-media impressions were generated by the league along with better than 1-millon social-media followers and 100,000 YouTube subscriptions.
• Fans from 88 different countries viewed PWHL games online.
• The total regular-season attendance was 392,259 for 72 games, an average of 5,448 per contest.
• Sports Business Journal named the PWHL its “Sports Breakthrough of the Year.”
• The PWHL earned the top spot as the most trusted and reputable organization in Canada, according to the Harris Poll 50.

 

While there always are legitimate questions and concerns that can be raised about any organization that enjoys unexpected success in its first year of operation, the PWHL wasted no time in answering the momentum question.

Taking a page out of the National Football League’s billion-dollar off-season playbook for staying relevant throughout the calendar year, the PWHL welcomed some of the sport’s top young stars – and future superstars – just a few days after the first champion was crowned by holding its second draft. From there, the league created excitement and anticipation among both loyal and casual fan groups with the following offseason publicity roadmap, which helped them stay in the news and at the forefront of social-media interaction thought the summer and fall:

 

• The second PWHL Draft was held in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 10, with six potential future superstars selected in the first round: forward Sara Fillier (New York), forward Danielle Serdachny (Ottawa), defender Claire Thompson (Minnesota), forward Hannah Bilka (Boston), defender Cayla Barnes (Montreal) and forward Julia Gosling (Toronto) were the super six.

 

• Team nicknames were announced and logos were unveiled in September after 2-1/2 months of build-up, hints, speculation and social-media promotion: Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, New York Sirens, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres.

 

• Three teams announced that they would be playing in new venues: Toronto and Montreal had outgrown their original homes and were moving to larger facilities, while New York needed to find a permanent home after an experimental, nomadic Year 1 that saw the team play in three different venues and practice at a fourth. That hurt the team’s ability to build a supportive community, which led to the franchise being the only one in the PWHL to struggle at the gate. This year, the Sirens will play at the Prudential Center, the Newark, N.J., home of the NHL’s Devils and the venue that provided their largest home audience of Year 1.

 

• The PWHL announced in late October that the league plans on expanding by as many as two teams for the 2025-26 season. To date, the PWHL has received 25 expansion proposal from interested cities.

 

• The league presented its new uniform designs as well as each team’s logo in partnership with Bauer Nov. 7. The uniforms maintain the team colors that were utilized during the inaugural season, so merchandise purchased by fans in Year 1 would still be relevant and current.

 

• The PWHL announced the launching of new media venture called PWHL Media House Nov. 12. PWHL Media House is designed to “expand the conversation and content” surrounding women’s hockey, and the league also acquired the popular Jocks and Jills Podcast, featuring Tessa Bonhomme and Julia Tocheri, as a first step in that direction.

 

• More corporate partners were added, bringing the league’s total to nearly 50. The most newsworthy addition came Nov. 13 when the PWHL announced a partnership with Electronic Arts, a deal that included inclusion of the league’s players, logos and uniforms in the company’s popular NHL ’25 video game.

 

• Canadian broadcast partners for the second season were announced Nov. 14. Once again, PWHL games will be carried by TSN, RDS and CBC/Radio-Canada, with Amazon Prime also joining the party to ensure that all 90 regular-season games will be available via traditional broadcasts or webstream. There also will be exclusive French-language coverage of all 30 Montreal regular-season contests.

 

• 18, as teams were in final preparations for the start of their seasons, the league unveiled plans for a nine-city Takeover Tour during which all six teams will play games at neutral sites over the course of an 84-day span beginning Jan. 5, 2025. The tour includes stops in nine cities: Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Quebec City, Edmonton, Buffalo, Raleigh, Detroit and St. Louis, with most of the games taking place in NHL arenas. Every PWHL team will play in at least two Takeover Tour games, with Ottawa playing four times while Boston and Minnesota each will participate in three contests. It seems likely that at least a few of these contests will serve as dress rehearsals for potential expansion markets.

 

• Mini-camps were held in Toronto and Montreal Nov. 19-22, with each team playing a pair of exhibition games to assist in the process of determining final rosters.

 

• In conjunction with the opening of mini-camps, the PWHL announced more rules innovations for the 2024-25 campaign Nov. 19. The PWHL became the first professional hockey league to hand out a major penalty and game misconduct as a default penalty for any type of head contact. According to Rule 48, a “hit to the head will automatically initiate a further review with the PWHL Central Situation Room, by which referees may confirm their original call, reduce the penalty to a minor if the hit was accidental, or rescind it entirely.” In addition, the league introduced the “No Escape Rule,” which prohibits the team committing a penalty from substituting any players for the start of the penalty kill until the first faceoff after the call is made. Last year, the PWHL drew favorable attention with its “Jailbreak Rule,” which called for a penalized player to be released from the penalty box if a shorthanded goal is scored while the penalty is being served.

 

• American broadcast partners NESN and MSG Networks were announced 27 and 29, respectively. All 30 Boston Fleet and New York Sirens contests will be available on their respective in-market over-the-air channels, with more than 30 additional PWHL contests being televised by NESN. For viewers who don’t have access to those channels – including international fans – games also can be seen once again on the league’s YouTube Channel. Hockey fans living anywhere who have a satellite dish that carries those networks will be view the NESN and MSG broadcasts as well.

 

• The puck finally dropped on PWHL Season 2 Nov. 30, with the Toronto Sceptres hosting the Boston Fleet and the Ottawa Charge traveling to Montréal to take on the Victoire. Each team is slated to play 30 games in 2024-25, an increase of six per team, for a league total of 90 regular-season contests. The regular season concludes May 3, 2025.

 

With any questions and concerns as to how the PWHL would maintain the momentum it built in Season 1 and stay relevant during the offseason successfully answered, the only thing left to do was to drop the puck on Season 2 and see if those efforts would translate at the turnstiles.

With the addition of 48 world-class rookies – including 34 from the college ranks – the PWHL opened its second season with a game between host Toronto and Boston Nov. 30. There were 159 total rostered players as the season got underway, including 22 international players – eight more than in Year 1.

So how did it go? Did the offseason hype work?

Toronto welcomed 8,089 fans to its new, Coca-Cola Coliseum home as the Sceptres knocked off the Fleet, 3-1. Later that day more than 10, 000 jammed into Montreal’s Place Bell for the hosts’ 4-3 shootout win against Ottawa. More than 8,000 fans turned out to see the Minnesota Freeze raise their 2023-24 championship banner, but many went home disappointed following a 4-3 overtime loss to New York.

Through the first week of action, with each team playing twice, the PWHL had drawn nearly 42,000 fans for an average of 6,970 per contest. Each team except the Sirens hosted a home opener during the initial week of play, and even the three mid-week games drew an average of better than 5,200 per contest.

Fair enough. Most professional sports teams seem to draw well on opening nights and throughout the first week of the season. What happened after that?

Well, on Friday, Dec. 6, Montreal traveled to Ottawa for a rematch against the Charge at Canadian Tire Centre, home of the NHL’s Senators. More than 11,000 turned out to watch the visitors earn a hard-fought 2-1 victory that night. Toronto fell to Minnesota, 6-3, in front of 7,584 Saturday, with 4,003 showing up to the Tsongas Centre in Lowell, Mass., Sunday to watch the host Boston Fleet beat New York, 4-2.

The Sirens, who were the lone PWHL team to struggle at the gate last year, play their first home game at Prudential Center Dec. 18. There are no more league games between now and Tuesday, Dec. 17.

Through the season’s first nine games, the PWHL already has drawn a total of 64,473 spectators. That works out to an average of 7,163 per game, with the average attendance during Week 2 surpassing the Week 1 number.

Sounds like the league hasn’t lost any momentum, eh? Is it possible that the PWHL actually has gained popularity now that Season 2 is underway?

Last year, casual hockey fans not as familiar with the women’s game were surprised at the game’s speed, skill and physicality. More liberal body-checking rules added a physical dimension to the game that may have been missing previously, which combined with the sport’s other attributes to make the PWHL version more appealing to the masses.

Now, with the addition of 48 top players from around the world, the level of play only figures improve. With only six teams and about 160 players rostered, many capable players failed to make season-opening rosters and headed to Europe to play professionally in hopes of getting a PWHL opportunity later this season or next fall. It’s clear that not only does league expansion make sense financially, but also there are way more capable players than there are available roster spots at this point. Expansion will not hurt the level of play, so when up to two teams are added in 2025 it will be a win for the league, the players and the fans.

The new faces have made quite an impact already, too.

New York Rookie Sarah Fillier leads the league in scoring with 6 points, while Minnesota newcomer Dominque Petrie is tied for second in goals with 3. Fillier and Minnesota rookie Britta Curl-Salemme are next with 2 goals apiece. Montreal forward Abby Boreen, who only played a handful of regular-season games last season for Minnesota while attending pharmaceutical school, was named the league’s third star for the opening week and thus far has been a full-time player for the Victoire.

Maybe all of the PWHL’s questions still haven’t been answered, and certainly there are remaining issues to be solved such as the pay discrepancy between the top players and minimum-salaried players, forming true national broadcasting partnerships and generating enough revenue to provide more livable, full-time salaries for all of the players, but so far there have been more than enough positive indicators to assume that the league is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

The PWHL’s desire to expand after just two seasons, the influx of top international players this season after many of them took a wait-and-see approach for Year 1 and the increase in attendance thus far after an inaugural season that blew away even the PWHL’s internal attendance projections all seem to forecast the likelihood of long-term success.

Future indicators that might predict the league’s potential as a major player in the North American professional sports marketplace will be how tethe Sirens fare at their new home in New Jersey and the level of interest that is generated by the Takeover Tour.

No matter what, though, it appears as though North American hockey fans have another high-level product to watch, invest in and support without having to worry about whether it will still be around in a few years.

The PWHL only has been a reality for about a year and half, but the league carries itself like a grizzled veteran with years of postseason experience. And that certainly bodes very well for its future.