The PWHL will reach their four-team expansion goal with PWHL San Jose, the final addition ahead of the 2026-27 season, which the league is expected to officially announce on Tuesday.
The PWHL is coming to California. The Professional Women's Hockey League is expected to formally announce their fourth expansion team ahead of the 2026-27 season on Tuesday in San Jose, California.
The league and San Jose had struggled to come to the final details of what their relationship would look like with the PWHL team joining the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center.
The team will enter one of the biggest markets in the United States in the Bay Area with San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland to draw from.
The sides had yet to sign a formal agreement by the time the league announced expansion to Hamilton, Detroit, and Las Vegas, as they worked out the final details of the agreement to bring the PWHL to San Jose.
According to sources, the final hurdle to cross were around scheduling PWHL games within the NHL calendar and how those logistics would play out.
San Jose itself is USA's 12th most populated city, and California is the most populated state in the United States.
The final expansion announcement brings the PWHL to 12 teams for the 2026-27 season including Boston, New York, Minnesota, Detroit, Las Vegas, Seattle and San Jose in the USA. Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, and Vancouver are the Canadian markets.
After playing the league's first three seasons with an even balance of Canadian and American franchises, the PWHL, for the first time, will enter 2026-27 with an imbalance of seven American teams and five Canadian.