The PWHL is headed to Las Vegas. The location of the next expansion franchise in the pro women’s hockey league’s was confirmed by The Athletic in advance of a Wednesday announcement at T-Mobile Arena. PWHL Las Vegas, which will begin its season in 2026–27, will likely share the 18,000-seat venue with the Golden Knights and the Aces.
The new franchise continues the city’s ascent as a sports mecca: In the past nine years, the Raiders (2020) and the Aces (2018) both relocated to Las Vegas, while the Golden Knights were added as an NHL expansion team in 2017 and won the Stanley Cup in 2023. The A’s will relocate to the heart of the Strip in 2028.
The addition of PWHL Vegas comes on the heels of the May 6 introduction of Detroit as another expansion market for 2026–27. PWHL Detroit will play its games at the Red Wings’ and Pistons’ Little Caesars Arena, which seats more than 19,000 for hockey games.
With these new inclusions, the PWHL now tallies 10 franchises. None of the new teams has a name yet, though Detroit unveiled its colors as red, white, and black at its announcement. Detroit will also host the PWHL Draft (June 16) and PWHL Awards (June 17).
That 10-team number may last only a day, however.
A scheduled announcement in Canada is expected to bring a third new team on Thursday: PWHL Hamilton. This will mark the second of the league’s franchises in Ontario; the Sceptres play less than an hour down the road in Toronto. PWHL Hamilton will likely play its games at the newly renovated 18,000-seat TD Coliseum, and would share the arena with Hamilton’s new AHL team, the New York Islanders affiliate that relocated from Bridgeport, Conn. at the end of this season.
The league has yet to officially announce Las Vegas and Hamilton as expansion sites, and did not immediately respond to a Front Office Sports request for confirmation.
These moves mark the second consecutive season for PWHL expansion, as the league added teams in Seattle and Vancouver ahead of the 2025–26 campaign. Despite finishing their inaugural seasons at the bottom of the league standings, the Torrent and Goldeneyes were the only two teams to average more than 10,000 in home attendance during the regular season.
From the PWHL’s inception, rapid expansion was a huge priority for the league, which is now in the playoffs of its third season. The roadmap, PWHL EVP of business operations Amy Scheer told FOS in February, always included new teams for the 2026–2027 season—though the exact number of new franchises was undefined then. Twelve teams is the league’s current target.
Detroit hosted PWHL games during the 2025–26 season’s Takeover Tour, created so the league could test new markets. The league drew 9,624 fans to Little Caesars Arena on Jan. 3 and 15,938 for a March 28 game. Vegas did not host any Takeover Tour stops, so 2026–27 will mark the PWHL’s official debut in the city. In Hamilton, 16,012 fans watched a Jan. 3 PWHL Takeover Tour game at TD Coliseum.
According to an email from PWHLPA executive director Malaika Underwood, the league will not hold a traditional expansion draft to fill new rosters like last year. Instead, players can be signed by expansion teams in four windows, with the first one tentatively beginning May 28. Before that begins, current teams can protect up to three players on their roster.
This round of expansion is well timed, as women’s hockey is still riding the momentum of a wildly successful Winter Olympics. The gold-medal game between the U.S. and Canada averaged 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock—the most-viewed women’s gold-medal game ever.
The fervor carried over into the PWHL season, with the league crossing the one-million fan attendance mark in a season for the first time, and seeing an 190% increase in merchandise sales following the Olympics (compared to the same period in 2025). With expansion, the PWHL is hoping to capitalize on the rising interest in women’s hockey.
The PWHL is currently in the middle of the Walter Cup playoff semifinals. The upcoming finals will be broadcast on ION, the first time the event will be aired on U.S. national TV.
