The PWHL Takeover Tour made its stop in Quebec on Sunday afternoon, and unlike last year, there was no sold-out crowd at the Centre Videotron. Could it be that the Quebec crowd is tired of always being a bridesmaid and never a bride in expansion processes?
For a second year in a row, the PWHL staged a Takeover Tour game at the Centre Videotron in Quebec City. In 2025, the January game featured the local favourite Montreal Victoire and the Ottawa Charge. 18,259 fans filled the sold-out arena to the brim and witnessed the Montreal outfit's 2-1 win over its Ottawa rival. The game was a tremendous success, and it got local fans excited, thinking they may just get a team for the following season when the PWHL announced it was considering adding perhaps two new teams for the 2025-26 campaign.
With an NHL-calibre rink that was built in the hope of bringing the Quebec Nordiques back in Gary Bettman’s league, the city felt it had the perfect infrastructure to welcome a PWHL team. After all, the Centre Videotron was mainly used by the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL, and a professional team in Quebec could have had a building to not only call its own, but brand as well, unlike what the Victoire has in Montreal.
But the expansion announcement came, and the winning cities were Vancouver, which had attracted 19,038 fans in its Takeover Tour game, and Seattle, which had attracted 12,608 fans in the first game of the promotional tour. After failing to attract an NHL team since 2015 when the Centre Videotron was completed despite the Vegas Golden Knights, the Seattle Kraken and the Utah Mammoth entering the league, Quebec saw its hope of getting a professional team once again crushed.
The PWHL decided to return to Quebec for a second Takeover Tour game in 2026, this time featuring the Victoire and the Vancouver Goldeneyes expansion side. This time, the building wasn’t sold out; in fact, according to the league’s website, only 14,624 fans attended, a significant drop compared to the 2025 edition.
Could anybody blame Quebec for tiring of always being a bridesmaid and not a bride? Over the years, the city has hosted numerous NHL exhibition games and welcomed the PWHL, but has once again ended up without a team. Quebec loves its hockey, but its patience is wearing thin.
Still, there was plenty of atmosphere at the arena on Sunday afternoon, and everyone went home happy when the Victoire won by a 1-0 margin. Marie-Philip Poulin had an assist on rookie Nicole Gosling’s first career goal, and Ann-Renee Desbiens got a shutout.
Montreal was lucky to hang on after Abby Roque was assessed a five-minute penalty and a game misconduct for a hit to Abby Boreen’s head. On her way to the dressing room, Roque hit her stick against the wall, visibly annoyed, but the penalty and the game misconduct were fully deserved. That’s the flip side of having a player like Roque. She’s been very good for the Victoire so far this season, but there are times when she crosses the line with physicality, and today was Montreal’s first glimpse of that.
It will be interesting to see whether the league goes ahead with a second expansion in as many years and whether Quebec is among the lucky cities. Now that there are two teams out west, though, it wouldn’t be surprising if the PWHL wanted to add more teams out there to make a better return on their travel investment. Time will tell…
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