Although the puck has yet to drop on the PWHL’s third season, there is already speculation about when and where the next wave of expansion may take place.
As reported by David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, as many as four teams may be added in time for the 2026-27 campaign. This season marks the debut of the new expansion teams located in both Seattle and Vancouver, increasing the league’s membership to eight clubs.
Last season, the PWHL Takeover Tour was showcased in nine different cities as teams participated in neutral-site games that were staged to gain interest in potential markets. The games in Seattle (January 5) and Vancouver (January 8) were attended by crowds of 12,608 and 19,038 fans, respectively.
Where might the league end up next? In putting forth our best guess, let’s look at factors such as: previous Takeover Tour attendance, geographic rivalries, and arena availability.
The latter category places into the mix the other seven cities from last year’s Takeover Tour: Denver, Quebec City, Edmonton, Buffalo, Raleigh, Detroit and St. Louis. Pittsburgh, along with Detroit, hosted a Takeover game in March of 2024. Calgary, Hamilton, Los Angeles and Las Vegas also have rinks that are more than adequate to host professional women’s hockey.
Let’s put Quebec City at the top of the list. On January 19, the Videotron Centre hosted a game in which the Montreal Victoire edged the Ottawa Charge 2-1. An enormous crowd of 18,259 was in attendance, a figure surpassed on the Takeover Tour only by Vancouver. Both teams that participated in this game already present natural rivals. The Videotron Centre’s primary tenant is the QMJHL team, the Remparts. While it doesn’t appear that an NHL team is in Quebec City’s immediate future, a PWHL team would most certainly be a worthy occupant.
To complement an additional entry into the east, we’ll pick Detroit, the only city to host Takeover games in consecutive years. On March 16, 2024, the clubs then known as PWHL Boston and PWHL Ottawa played in front of 13,736 fans at Little Caesar’s Arena, setting what was a U.S. attendance record for professional women’s hockey. Exactly one year later, a game at the same venue between the Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens usurped the mark, drawing a crowd of 14,288.
Moving west, it’s hard, if not impossible, to overlook Edmonton. On February 16 of this year, the Toronto Sceptres ousted Ottawa 3-2 in overtime, and 17,518 attendees were jammed into Rogers Place to witness the thrilling contest. The rink, of course, already hosts the NHL’s Oilers and the WHL’s Oil Kings, so adding at least 15 additional home dates to accommodate a new PWHL game could be complicated, but certainly not infeasible.
Finally, for the fourth potential market, we’ll pick Denver. Interest from the Mile High City was evident when 14,018 fans came to Ball Arena on January 12 to see the Minnesota Frost double up Montreal 4-2. For a brief period, this was the largest crowd ever to watch a U.S. women’s pro hockey game, prior to the Takeover’s return to Detroit.
It was a toss-up between Calgary and Denver for the final selection. The nod goes to the latter, primarily because adding Quebec City, Detroit, Edmonton and Denver would preserve an equal allotment of teams on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.
We’ll save the hockey hotbed of Calgary for a potential next wave of expansion, joining Raleigh, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Interest from Buffalo, Pittsburgh and St. Louis – all attended by crowds of fewer than 10,000 – appears to be too lukewarm for serious consideration. For context, the average attendance on the nine stops of the 2025 Takeover Tour was 13,733.
It’s worth noting that the original version of the 2025-26 PWHL schedule has 16 games – two games per club – for which a venue has still yet to be determined. Should any or all of these games be allocated to another Takeover tour, we’ll revisit our choices.
