The PWHL's takeover weekend served as a test of Detroit's viability as a women's hockey market. The result was overwhelming
The PWHL's takeover weekend served as a test of Detroit's viability as a women's hockey market. The result was overwhelming
"Thanks for giving us girls a dream!" read one sign pressed to the glass during warm-ups. "Welcome home Coach Taylor #17!" read another, directed at Boston forward Taylor Girard, born in Macomb, Michigan. One more offered the delightfully ambitious declaration "Future PWHL Players" followed by a heart.
The lower bowl of Little Caesars Arena was full before the puck dropped and resplendent with jerseys of many colors. There was the familiar red and white of the Red Wings. There was PWHL purple, the green of Boston, and Ottawa's black and red.
The rainbow effect was completed by blues and yellows and oranges and golds from the jerseys of the myriad girls hockey programs from around the state of Michigan and beyond represented for the occasion: the LaSalle Sabres, Honeybaked, Washtenaw United, the Woodstock Wildcats, the South County Predators, the Cleveland Barons, Fox Motors Hockey Club, the Metro Jets, Belle Tire, Little Caesars, Biggby Coffee, the Grand Rapids Junior Griffins, the Windsor Junior Wildcats, the Trenton Blades.
There might not be a women's professional hockey team based in Michigan yet, nor is there even varsity division one women's hockey in the state, but there was women's professional hockey on Saturday night when the PWHL came to Detroit, and the result was joyous and overwhelming. "There's just such a great energy and vibe in the building," said PWHL commissioner Jayna Hefford during the second intermission.
"Detroit is a market we looked really closely at as we were doing our market research," she said, of the decision to bring her fledgling league's "Takeover Weekend" to the city. "It's Hockeytown. The grassroots hockey in this market we know is huge. The proximity to Canada, so you get the cross-border fans, and obviously the legacy of the Red Wings. It just seems like an obvious hockey market that we'd love to be a part of. Although not in our original six, it's somewhere that we still have our eyes on, and tonight has just been another proof point that this is a market that loves hockey and loves women's hockey."
The fans rose together, cheering and waiving rally towels, when during the second period, a sign reading "Detroit needs a girls hockey team" in rainbow font appeared on the Jumbotron. The arena sang along to Taylor Swift as one during a stoppage in play in the second. The crowd rose together again in the third period, when the game's attendance—13, 736 strong—was announced as a new record for professional women's hockey in the United States.
"When I was growing up, I was watching women's hockey on TV every four years at the Olympics, so to be able to come back and play in a professional at home is pretty special," said defenseman Megan Keller, born about 20 miles northwest of LCA in Farmington. "Hopefully there are a lot of young girls in the crowd tonight, and now they have a dream and something to look up to and something to look forward to."
Keller gave the fans—who, for the most part, sided with Boston because of her, Girard, and Shiann Darkangelo of Brighton—an early reason for excitement (as if they needed another) when she provided the primary assist on a goal from Hilary Knight barely three minutes into the evening's action.
Knight would go on to send the fans home happy when she scored what would prove the shootout winner after five bonus minutes of hockey in overtime.
"Seeing so many fans of our league even though we're in a market that doesn't have a hometown team," replied Hefford, when asked what stood out most about her league's reception in Detroit. "I'm seeing all kinds of PWHL gear and Ottawa gear and Boston gear. I think it shows you've got hockey fans in this market that are following, even though they don't have a team yet."
For now, the evening's celebration was a one-off, but, from the moment the league's "Takeover Weekend" project was announced, there was a clear undercurrent that the event would serve as a trial run of additional markets for potential expansion. If Saturday night was a test of Detroit's viability, the result was an unqualified success—between the fast and physical hockey, the unfettered joy of the crowd, and the record attendance figure.
"Coming home to Michigan and bringing the PWHL here, it's awesome to be a part of, and hopefully it's not the last time that we're playing here," said Keller. "I can't give you a timeline [for expansion], but I'd say the way we are right now, the excitement, the growth that we're looking at, hopefully sooner than later," said Hefford, stoking that excitement to even greater heights.
"I think there's such an appetite for what we do all across North America," said Emily Clark, who scored Ottawa's lone goal on the evening. "Obviously, Detroit's known to be [the] men's Hockeytown, and I don't see why it can't be just Hockeytown and have both."
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