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Sunday’s PWHL game between the Minnesota Frost and Montreal Victoire took place in an unusual location—in Denver, nearly 1,000 miles from either team’s home city. That didn’t deter 14,018 fans from flocking to Ball Arena, where they set a U.S. record for attendance at a professional women’s hockey game.
The PWHL, which is in its second season, averaged 5,844 fans per game in 2024 but is already getting around 7,000 this season, thanks in part to strong attendance at neutral sites.
That’s part of the league’s growth strategy. Before the season, the PWHL began promoting a nine-city “Takeover Tour” designed to simultaneously whet the North American public’s appetite for pro women’s hockey and test out potential destinations for expansion franchises. (The tour is part of the regular season, which began Nov. 30.) The first game of the tour took place Jan. 5 in Seattle and drew 12,608 spectators to watch the Boston Fleet eke out a victory over the Victoire. Three nights later, 19,083 fans showed up in Vancouver to watch the Victoire beat the Toronto Sceptres—the third-highest attendance mark of any PWHL game to date.
PWHL SVP of business operations Amy Scheer said in October that the league was aiming to expand from six teams to eight in time for the 2025–2026 season, explaining it was “looking for the right market size, right fan base, right facilities, right economic opportunity.”
The PWHL is rapidly collecting data points—and airline miles—as it figures out which cities are most deserving of landing those two new franchises.
The tour continues Jan. 19 and runs through March 29, with the remaining games in Québec City; Edmonton; Buffalo; Raleigh, N.C.; Detroit; and St. Louis. Several of those cities have previously been rumored as potential sites for PWHL expansion teams.
Quebec City, the only site on this year’s tour without an NHL team, is perhaps making the biggest push; the city council is trying to fill the 18,259-seat Videotron Centre, which is currently home to a junior ice hockey team. Detroit, which became the previous record holder for U.S. attendance at a pro women’s hockey game after hosting a PWHL game last season, is another strong contender. Its citizens will be looking to prove its enthusiasm wasn’t a one-off occurrence.
Additional cities in the mix include Pittsburgh, which hosted a PWHL game last year, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Despite Denver’s strong showing, its geography may be working against it in terms of landing a franchise. Minnesota is currently the westernmost team in the league. Moreover, despite Minnesota’s strong attendance, Canadian teams scored bigger crowds than their U.S. counterparts last season. Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto averaged 6,074, compared to the 4,408 who attended Minnesota, Boston, and New York home games.
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