PWHL team for Vancouver? League admits there's "great potential"
There could be another professional hockey team joining the Canucks in Vancouver in the not-so-distant future.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is hosting a game at Rogers Arena on Wednesday night, which has been sold out for weeks. The game between the Montreal Victoire and Toronto Sceptres is part of the league’s “takeover tour,” taking place just three days after Montreal and Boston drew 12,608 fans for a PWHL game in Seattle.
All of the excitement and hype around the PHWL on the West Coast leads to the natural question of expansion. The league, which is in its second year of operation, has six clubs based in Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Minnesota, Ottawa, and New York.
Minnesota is currently the westernmost-based team, but the PWHL is interested in growing, and there are plenty of reasons to believe Vancouver could be a fit.
“We’re excited about the growth opportunities and spreading a bit further from where we’re currently located but at the same time we have to make sure it’s the right move, it’s the right markets, the right partners, the right venue,” PWHL senior vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford told reporters in Vancouver today.
“So there’s a lot to consider, but certainly, this first experience here on the West Coast has been incredible, and it gives us a lot to think about, and [we] think there’s great potential here.”
While the incredible fan support is great to see, it’s far from the only factor the PHWL takes into consideration when discussing expansion. There are a lot more boxes that need to be checked to earn a team.
“There’s probably about 10 or 12 different things we’re looking at. We’ve built out a model that breaks out all of the different things with different weighting,” explained PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
Some of those factors include the youth hockey landscape, the number of girls playing hockey in that market, partnership opportunities, and the ability to access proper training facilities.
Theoretically, Vancouver should grade well in many of those categories. The hockey culture in the city is strong, and there is clearly demand for more professional hockey than just the Canucks, especially at a more affordable price point.
Why Vancouver might need to wait
While there are a lot of reasons why the PWHL could pick Vancouver as its next expansion club, there is a reason why they may not. It has to do with geography.
Given the closest team to Vancouver is currently a 3.5-hour flight away in Minnesota, adding a club in Vancouver would mean a lot more travel and some difficult transportation logistics.
“The challenges actually are more on the hockey side versus the business side,” explained Scheer.
“A business can get set up anywhere but hockey comes with lots of stuff. Making sure from a travel perspective, it’s right for the players and the player’s health, that we get the equipment where it needs to be.”
“All the markets that we’re talking to all have professional sports teams, and we could certainly put down roots there and build out a business staff, but I think the bigger challenges are making sure that the travel is right and it’s the right environment for the players.”
Players currently fly commercial to and from games. Some teams flew on charter planes during last year’s playoffs, but the short-term plan is to stick with commercial flights. Adding flights to Vancouver is a big expense, both in terms of time and money.
Expanding too quickly can be a death sentence for a young professional sports league. While the positive momentum of the PWHL and women’s sports as a whole can make for a frothy environment, the league is being cautious.
“We’ve been very clear that we may expand and we may not. We’re doing all of the due diligence but I don’t think for us it’s about striking while the iron is hot. I think it’s making a very educated decision based on everything that we’ll learn.”
Besides Vancouver and Seattle, the PWHL is also making stops in Denver, Quebec City, Edmonton, Buffalo, Raleigh, Detroit, and St. Louis during this tour.
The PWHL is growing and new fans are being made not only across the country, but across North America. There’s no telling where the league will be at in five years and if things continue to trend this way, Vancouver could be home to a team by then.
If this Takeover Tour provides the results the league was looking for, a new Western Conference could be born. Teams could be stationed in Vancouver, Edmonton, Seattle, and Denver, all stops on the league’s current tour around North America, as well as in Calgary where a new arena will be ready sometime around 2027.
That would give them five new teams, nearly doubling the six currently in the league. An easy solution would be to move Minnesota to the Western Conference, as they’re located fairly centrally, and then start another expansion city on the East Coast, perhaps in hockey-hungry Quebec City.
Could this work one day for the PWHL?
Eastern Conference
- Toronto
- Montreal
- Ottawa
- Boston
- New York
- Quebec City
Western Conference
- Minnesota
- Vancouver
- Seattle
- Edmonton
- Denver
- Calgary
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