As PWHL Plans Expansion, Detroit a Natural Candidate
With plans for two new franchises announced, the PWHL has the chance to follow up on his visit to Detroit from a year ago
We are just over a month away from the puck dropping on the second season of PWHL hockey (which will commence on Nov. 30), but that doesn't mean the fledgling league isn't making news.
At an espnW summit this morning, PWHL Senior VP of Business Operations Amy Scheer made some major announcements about her league's future. First, she announced that the league would continue its "barnstorming" gambit from its inaugural season a year ago, with plans to play nine games in markets beyond the six North American cities where it presently has franchises. Scheer also noted that the league would "work towards" an outdoor game and games in Europe. Perhaps, more significantly, Scheer also announced that the PWHL would be looking to expand, looking to add two new franchises as soon as the 2025-26 season.
That should be cause for the ears of hockey fans across the state of Michigan to perk up. Detroit was one of two cities (the other being Pittsburgh) to host "barnstorming" games a year ago, and the PWHL's visit to Little Caesars Arena could be described as nothing short of a smashing success. The game brought homecomings for star players like Megan Keller, a record-setting crowd for fans at a women's professional hockey game in the U.S., Taylor Swift karaoke, and an altogether joyful occasion.
The night of that game between Boston and Ottawa (who've added the names Fleet and Charge during the league's launch of team names during the offseason), PWHL commissioner Jayna Hefford spoke highly of Detroit as a potential market for expansion.
"Detroit is a market we looked really closely at as we were doing our market research," she said. "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."
Of course, nothing's official yet, and the league would be erring to not consider all options, but it certainly seems as though a PWHL team coming to Hockeytown in the not too distant future is a very realistic possibility, one that would benefit the league and market alike.
Also from THN Detroit