PWHL rides record crowds and rapid growth into new era

PWHL Montréal’s 21,105 fans at the Bell Centre did more than set a women’s hockey attendance record. They showed that the Professional Women’s Hockey League can fill major buildings, draw national attention and keep expanding without losing momentum.

The league launched on Jan. 1, 2024 with six teams in Boston, Minnesota, Montréal, New York, Ottawa and Toronto, and its first season delivered 392,259 fans across 72 regular-season games. It broke six attendance records, a rare run of proof points for a new league trying to establish itself in a crowded sports market. The first game, played at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre, drew 2,537 fans and, the PWHL said, reached 2.8 million viewers. Billie Jean King handled the ceremonial puck drop, giving the league an instant symbolic boost and a direct link to the long fight for women’s sports visibility.

That opening mattered because the PWHL did not begin as a one-city experiment or a one-off showcase. It started as a six-market league in hockey cities that already understood the sport, giving players immediate visibility in places with established fan bases and strong media interest. By the time Montréal hosted Toronto at the Bell Centre on April 20, 2024, the league had already set the women’s hockey attendance mark, turning a regular-season game into a statement about demand. Five of the league’s six attendance records came in Montréal, underscoring how quickly the market responded when the league brought elite women’s hockey into a major arena.

The league has also been careful about growth. In April 2025, it announced expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver, both set to begin play in the 2025-26 season. That step pushed the PWHL from six teams to eight, but only after its first season had already produced measurable demand. The pattern is notable: establish the product, prove the audience, then add markets.

That is why the league’s rise feels structurally different from past women’s hockey efforts. The PWHL has paired a compact, easy-to-follow schedule with high-visibility events, major-arena crowds and a steady expansion plan. Zandee-Hart and executive vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford have become familiar faces in that growth, and the league’s next phase now depends on turning record-setting attention into a stable North American business.