The PWHL is now a 12 team league, and it now stands to reason the league could look to implement conferences or divisions to better balance travel and competition.

In the league's first three seasons, the PWHL operated as a six team league for the first two campaigns, and expanded to an eight team league in 2025-26. Now, with 12 teams entering 2026-27, two six team conferences or divisions could be used to help balance competition, scheduling, travel, and to hone in on regional rivalries. 

The league has always operated in unique manners in professional sport, but conferences or divisions are undoubtedly on the docket, whether it's this season, or in the near future. Adding teams in San Jose, Las Vegas, Detroit, and Hamilton this season, the league is currently evaluating all options, but isn't ready to announce a decision yet.

"With four expansion teams joining the league, we’re evaluating different scheduling and competition formats internally," a league spokesperson told The Hockey News. "We aren’t in a position to announce any decisions at this time, and we’ll share details when appropriate."

Conferences could make sense, but a non-conference league could also remain the more plausible and practical option. For now, fans and teams will wait.

The league is currently restricted to, at most, a 32 game season in a 12-team league. This season the PWHL operated a 30 game schedule with eight teams. A home and home in 2026-27 against each team in the league would account for 22 games. Adding a second home and home with five teams in an equally split conference system would make a perfect 32 game schedule. 

In all likelihood, the league would ensure a home-and-home, but would then use some of the additional in-conference games as PWHL Takeover Tour stops.

For fans, there are issues in such a restrictive schedule. The primary concern would stem from the idea that fans in the east would have only a single opportunity to see stars from the west, and vice versa in person. For league marketing, having new stars like Laila Edwards, Caroline Harvey, and Abbey Murphy on one coast with only one stop in each original six market outside of Minnesota is a downfall, especially if any of those stars misses due to injury or suspension. But it remains the most likely option to help foster stronger regional rivalries.

Had the league continued with equal expansion between Canadian and American teams, a North and South conference, or Canadian and American could have been foreseeable, but the PWHL broke from trend, setting up a more traditional alignment.

A Western Conference would bring together Seattle, Vancouver, San Jose, Las Vegas, and Minnesota, but would also need to include Detroit. It would take Detroit from their closest geographic rivals in Hamilton and Toronto that sit only 200 miles (325 km) and make their new closest rival Minnesota at nearly 700 miles, or nearly 1000 km. 

Minnesota and Detroit are both, longitudinally in the eastern half of the United States. The NHL operates east to west, with multiple teams on the eastern side of the continent, including Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis, and Minnesota, playing in the Western Conference. Even Dallas and Winnipeg are slightly to the east, although both all just about as close to the longitudinal center of the continent as it gets.

Geographically, there isn't a simple answer related to a conference alignment for the PWHL. 

Detroit is geographically closer to Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa (470 miles), Montreal (560 miles), and New York  (615 miles), than Minnesota, and Boston sits only 20 miles farther for Detroit than St. Paul, Minnesota. 

Had the PWHL added a team in Colorado, Texas, Alberta, the geographic balance would have been complete, but the current roster of markets makes a natural division more difficult. 

That said, Detroit will have significantly less travel to road games in the east, which could actually benefit the team in the regular season compared to their west-coast counterparts who will have more time zones to cross, and more sleep and recovery disrupted. West Coast teams in Seattle and Vancouver found it difficult to manage some of those additional stressors this season as PWHL teams lack the same player supports as NHL teams for sleep, nutrition, and recovery, and only travel economy class on flights compared to business or private flights in other pro leagues.

With the PWHL's penchant for differing from other leagues however, it's not impossible the league considers three divisions instead. It could lead to a Pacific grouping of Seattle, Vancouver, Las Vegas, and San Jose. The league could then decide between a Central and Atlantic Division, or a Canadian Division with Hamilton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal, and an American division with Detroit, Minnesota, Boston, and New York. Or, the league could decide to do something completely different to put a unique stamp on their footprint and marketing.

In the NHL's earliest days, they tried different alignments, but in the Original Six era, the top men's professional league in the world also operated without conferences. It wasn't until the 1967 expansion that an East and West Division were necessitated. After 1974 as expansion continued to grow the NHL's footprint, the league added divisions within conferences. Those divisions remain in place today and create regional connections, and also have playoff implications for division champions. 

The WNBA, North America's longest running professional women's sports league was founded with two four-team conferences.

Conversely, the NWSL remains a non-conferenced league with 16 teams spanning from east to west coasts, albeit without, like the WNBA and PWHL, teams in both Canada and the United States as the NWSL remains strictly American.

In terms of scheduling, regional development, broadcasting, and travel, dividing the PWHL into conferences or divisions makes sense. Whether it's this season, or a future campaign, it's only a matter of time before the PWHL begins drawing lines in their league map.