Top 10 Women's Hockey Stories Of 2025

Another year is in the books. While the PWHL is in its third season, the league's entire on-ice history has taken place in 2024 and 2025. This year the league saw new highs, adding teams, breaking records, and attracting new talent. 

Internationally, the global scene is on a similar trajectory. 2025 was filled with moments that represented that growth, but there were also some difficult moments in the women's hockey world.

Together, the highs and lows made up a year filled with compelling stories. Here are the top 10 women's hockey stories of 2025.

Things were messy in Ottawa when it came to the plans to shrink the capacity of the Ottawa Charge's future venue at Lansdowne 2.0. Ottawa's council, and OSEG didn't invite the Charge to participate in conversations with only men's teams being considered, and the result was the PWHL saying they will never play at Lansdowne 2.0. It means in a few seasons, the Charge will be on the move to the Canadian Tire Centre, an arena at LeBreton Flats, or out of the city altogether.

It was a good year to be an American women's hockey fan. USA won gold at the 2025 World Championships in Czechia on a golden goal from Tessa Janecke, they won the Collegiate Series and U-18 Summer Series, and they dominated the Rivalry Series against Canada, including setting a new all-time record for most goals scored by an American team against Canada in a 10-4 win during game three of the Rivalry Series.

Kristyna Kaltounkova made history as the first-ever European chosen first overall in the PWHL Draft. There undoubtedly will be other European players picked atop the PWHL Draft in years to come, but Kaltounkova will always be the first. The Colgate grad and Czech national team member was lauded for her goal scoring and physicality. She signed a three-year contract with the New York Sirens who spent their draft picking young and skilled players to re-shape their roster.

2024 ended with a blockbuster trade between Toronto and Ottawa, swapping Jocelyne Larocque and Victoria Bach for Savannah Harmon and Hayley Scamurra. Perhaps the biggest deals however, came at the 2025 PWHL Draft. It started with the third overall pick, used by the New York Sirens to select Casey O'Brien and a second pick used on Maddi Wheeler, heading to the Toronto Sceptres for defender Ella Shelton. New York struck again later in the draft, sending Abby Roque to Montreal in exchange for Kristin O'Neill and the pick used to select Callie Shanahan. Closing out the PWHL Draft day was a deal sending Kristen Campbell and a pick (Nina Jobst-Smith) to the Vancouver Goldeneyes for a pair of picks (Kiara Zanon and Clara Van Wieren). On the eve of the 2025-26 season, a final deal took place swapping Denisa Krisova back to the Minnesota Frost with Anna Segedi going to Vancouver. 

The Minnesota Frost won their second straight Walter Cup, this time in four games against the Ottawa Charge. The Frost fought their way into the final playoff spot before upsetting the Toronto, and then fighting their way through Ottawa. Minnesota had to find a way to solve Gwyneth Philips, who ultimately was named the playoff MVP, but inevitably, it was Kendall Coyne Schofield hoisting the Walter Cup and passing it among her Frost teammates for the second straight season.

Denver set a new American attendance record at their PWHL Takeover Tour stop. Detroit then reclaimed the record at their own Takeover Tour stop, drawing 14,288 fans.

Those numbers came from the 2024-25 season, with the Detroit game seeing the PWHL top one million fans all-time. On the opening night of the 2025-26, the new Vancouver Goldeneyes set a new league record for the largest crowd to ever attend a game at a PWHL home venue, welcoming 14,948 to their home opener at Pacific Coliseum. A week later the Seattle Torrent topped that mark, and set a new all-time American attendance record for an in-arena women's hockey game drawing 16,014 fans to their own home opener at Climate Pledge Arena.

Much of the conversation around not only the PWHL, but NCAA and SDHL in 2025, surrounded an event not even in the calendar year. It revolved around who would make Olympic rosters for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy. Canada and USA both built 30-player rosters that trained in blocks. For USA those included stops in Lake Placid and Minnesota. Canada trained in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. Other nations like Italy spent time together, with the Italian national team meeting in Montreal for a month. Events including the Women's Euro Hockey Tour, Rivalry Series, and other Four Nations events speckled the calendar with all eyes on Milano Cortina. Speaking of the calendar, the other big news of 2025 was the reshaping of the women's World Championship calendar, moving the event to a November date which will from now on serve as a preseason PWHL tournament. 

Sometimes the news isn't what fans want to hear, and the hockey world unanimously came together in support of Ottawa Charge and Team Czechia head coach Carla MacLeod who announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in late November and was beginning treatment. She missed one game with the Ottawa Charge immediately after the announcement, and is expected to miss other moments this season, but she also plans to be behind the bench with Czechia at the Olympics. In the days following MacLeod's announcement, fans across the PWHL showed support for the former Olympic and World Championship gold medalist as a member of Team Canada. It was a unifying moment for the league's fans who showed their love for MacLeod. 

When the PWHL announced that teams would only be permitted to protect three players, and a fourth after two selections had been made, fans saw the writing on the wall. Each of the PWHL's six teams would lose stars. In Boston, it resulted in future Hall of Famer and the PWHL's co-leading scorer Hilary Knight being picked up by Seattle. Minnesota lost Canadian national team defenders Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques to Vancouver, who also signed Jennifer Gardiner, Emerance Maschmeyer, Sarah Nurse, and drafted now-captain Ashton Bell. Seattle grabbed American national team members Knight, Cayla Barnes, Hannah Bilka, and Alex Carpenter, and Canadian national team players Danielle Serdachny and Julia Gosling, along with Czech captain Aneta Tejralova. It was a concentration of talent to the league's two new franchises that no one expected. Fans reacted with anger, except on the west coast where there was an abundance of excitement. 

The West Coast response to the PWHL was fervent. Fans packed the Pacific Coliseum, which was immaculately decked out in Vancouver Goldeneyes colors and branding, including the league's first season-long logo at center ice. In Seattle, the Torrent welcomed a record-setting crowd. Both cities benefitted from unrivaled star power acquired through the expansion draft, free agency, and entry draft. Without the immense kick-off success of both franchises, it's unlikely the league would have jumped at future expansion so soon, and with a target of up to four more teams by next season. The growth of women's hockey was already exponential, but the West Coast acted as a catalyst speeding up the process.