Could Detroit Be a PWHL City? Neutral Site Game Shows Promising Results
Saturday’s PWHL game in Detroit was a record-breaking success. Does that mean Detroit could be a PWHL city in the future?
© Junfu Han/Eric Seals / USA TODAY NETWORK - Could Detroit Be a PWHL City? Neutral Site Game Shows Promising ResultsThe PWHL might be in its infancy, but fans are already screaming for more. If you were at Little Caesars Arena for Saturday night’s neutral site game between Boston and Ottawa, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The event broke the U.S. women’s hockey attendance record with 13,736 fans. The seats included hundreds of girls hockey players repping their youth clubs, as well as thousands of fans repping the Boston and Ottawa visitors. From the opening faceoff to Boston captain Hilary Knight’s game-winning goal in the shootout, the crowd stayed loud and intense. All this, mind you, for two teams it doesn’t have much rooting interest in.
All this begs the question: when can Detroit get its own team, too? For a young league, such a consideration is difficult — the first season isn’t even finished yet. But it’s a sign of its early momentum that the league can consider this.
“I mean, I personally think it’s a matter of time,” Boston defender and Michigan native Megan Keller said postgame. “There’s so much girls hockey in the state of Michigan and it continues to grow at rapid rates. And I think it’s something that a lot of these young girls deserve to be able to look up to. It’s called Hockeytown for a reason, and Michigan is such a hockey state. I think we should have one here.”
Timing matters a lot for PWHL expansion. The league wants to expand to give its fans a hometown team to cheer for, but it doesn’t want to ride its early momentum too much and overextend itself. So, it’s being cautious and using data points like Saturday’s game to plan for the future.
“Detroit is a market that we looked really closely at as we were doing our market research,” PWHL commissioner Jayna Hefford said in an interview during the game. “Obviously it’s Hockeytown. The grassroots hockey in this market we know is huge, 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 and although not in our original six, it’s somewhere that we still I think have our eyes on. And tonight has just been another proof point that this is a market that loves hockey and I think loves women’s hockey.”
Detroit is so attractive for a few reasons. Hefford noted that the PWHL is looking at cities that have a quality venue, a strong grassroots hockey movement and willing strategic partners. While it might be difficult for a PWHL team to play at Little Caesars Arena for a full season — balancing three full teams is logistically taxing — there are smaller rinks throughout the region that might host a team. Detroit’s grassroots hockey speaks for itself, with the fourth-most registered female players of any state according to USA Hockey, and the six Michiganders in the PWHL ranks comprise the third-most players by state. In terms of financial partners, Detroit has multiple nationally recognized companies to act as corporate sponsors if they’re willing, such as the Big Three automotive companies, QuickenLoans, and even Little Caesars. That’s not to say those companies or others are guaranteed to be involved, but they’re nonetheless there for the PWHL to pitch.
These traits make Detroit a lucrative market — and a record-breaking crowd probably widened some eyes — but it seems likely the PWHL holds off on expansion just yet. Adding a new city brings up a lot of considerations for the league’s longevity and health, something especially important considering this league was created to consolidate professional women’s hockey into one league. The politics of ownership, the cost of travel and the adoption of fans all stand as significant hangups to navigate.
“We also want to be strategic about how we grow and thoughtful about how we do it,” Hefford said. “And you don’t want to just go along with the excitement that currently exists. But at the same time, we’re a six-team league and there’s a lot of great female hockey players and women around the world that want to be a part of this league and we want to make sure that we tap into that, what that threshold is of having the best players in the world and markets that are really excited and can really add to the growth of this league.”
Hefford added, “I can’t give you a timeline. But I’d say the way we are right now, the excitement, the growth that we’re looking at — hopefully sooner than later — but there’s no timeline at this point.”
It’s hard to imagine that Detroit didn’t show that it can host a PWHL team with its embrace of the game Saturday night. A record-breaking crowd might not come out every night, and the one-off exclusivity of the neutral site game makes it easier to draw a big crowd. However, there’s enough women’s hockey support that Detroit could probably draw in sizable crowds for PWHL games. The roots of the fandom are strong considering the region’s connection to hockey in the first place. Even Hefford was excited to see the number of fans wearing Ottawa and Boston gear despite no geographic connection to those teams.
“I think that there's such an appetite for what we do all across North America,” Ottawa forward Emily Clark said. “And obviously Detroit is known to be a men's hockey town, and I don't see why it can't be just a hockey town and have both. But I think you can say the same of a lot of cities in North America.”
While an exact timeline might not exist, Saturday’s successful exhibition showcased the momentum that could fuel a PWHL expansion to the Motor City. When the young league decides to add more teams, it’s hard to imagine Detroit won’t be among its stronger candidates.