PWHL Takeover Weekend Shows Viability of Detroit Expansion
From The Silky Mitten State: Success of PWHL's visit to Detroit suggests expansion would be a home run
Sam Stockton, The Hockey News - PWHL Takeover Weekend Shows Viability of Detroit ExpansionA week ago today, the PWHL visited Detroit, with the league's "Takeover Weekend" pitting Ottawa against Boston at Little Caesars Arena.
Boston took a 2-1 shootout victory in a fast, physical, hotly contested affair, and the 13, 736 fans in attendance set a record for a professional women's hockey game in the United States. Simply put, the visit was a smashing success.
"Detroit is a market we looked really closely at as we were doing our market research," PWHL commissioner Jayna Hefford said, of the decision to bring her fledgling league's Takeover Weekend to town. "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."
"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 Boston defenseman Megan Keller, who was born in nearby 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."
"I think there's such an appetite for what we do all across North America," said Ottawa forward Emily Clark, who scored her team's 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."
With this being the league's inaugural season, it's not yet clear what the timeline to expansion will be, but Detroit has made clear it deserves strong consideration when that time comes.
On the most recent episode of The Silky Mitten State, Connor Earegood and I discussed the weekend's runaway success and the possibility of expansion to Detroit on a full time basis. For an excerpt of that conversation, check out this clip:
For full episodes of The Silky Mitten State, go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify:
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