Opinion: Seattle Fans Left Behind As PWHL Schedule Emerges

When it comes to scheduling, the PWHL still has issues. The league managed to get their schedule out earlier than ever before, announcing their 180 game regular season, including 24 PWHL Takeover Tour games, and the separation of the league into two conferences.

Previous seasons have given fans much tighter margins to purchase tickets and schedule their lives around home dates. This season, with the league now sitting at 12 teams, there was progress.

But there remain significant gaps, compounded by moving the IIHF World Championships to November, meaning the PWHL will not be able to start until December, unless they again intend to build a longer international break into their calendar in the future. It's unlikely, however, as the shift was done to avoid the PWHL calendar entirely, but that assertion locks a December start date into the PWHL's plans in perpetuity. 

With the CBA keeping the season capped at 32 games, it also means PWHL fans will continue to face, at minimum, 6-7 months of complete silence outside of the trickle of signing announcements. To date, that gap has been mitigated by expansion news and plans, growth opportunities like the league's new All-Star game and branding reveals. But those items are now in place, and the PWHL will not have this type of news to lean on when it comes to maintaining fan engagement in the future.

Conversely, leagues like the NHL feature at most two months, compared to more than triple that in the PWHL, without players on ice for development camps, rookie tournaments, and preseason action. The PWHL currently has no development camps or rookie camps, and the league limits training camps to a brief two-week window that also includes preseason games, which have largely been closed to the public, and not broadcast in the past.

While the PWHL gap is already significant, one fan base, that of the Seattle Torrent, is feeling it more than any other this year.

Seattle led the PWHL in attendance during their inaugural season averaging 12,875 fans, but it was a campaign that ended early. Seattle finished last overall, playing their final game of the regular season on April 25, a date which saw all eight PWHL teams in action.

With their home opener now known, Seattle will now wait 239 days, nearly eight months, between home games. From April 25, fans will need to wait until December 20 at 7pm when Seattle brings PWHL Las Vegas to Climate Pledge Arena.

It feels like a gap that is unsustainable for a fan base, where life emerges, disinterest creeps in, and fans are forced to look for other sources of entertainment that could threaten to replace the PWHL. 

Unlike other professional leagues, with camps closed to the public, and preseason action occurring in limited markets, Seattle fans will have no way to see their team in action outside of three games on television for the entirety of that eight month window.

Seattle's only preseason games will be played less than 24 hours apart on November 29 and 30 in San Jose. Fans also know that Seattle will visit Vancouver on the league's opening night December 5 for the Goldeneyes' home opener at Pacific Coliseum, and they'll play again in San Jose December 9, and on the second latest home opener facing the Minnesota Frost at Grand Casino Arena on December 13. Seattle fans will be able to see the Torrent on television, but not live unless they travel to Vancouver or San Jose.

Seattle's December 20 home opener is more than two weeks after the season begins on December 5, and a full week after home openers in Minnesota and Hamilton on December 13, which are the next to last in the league.

The PWHL's scheduling woes are due largely to the fact the league is a secondary tenant in all venues except the Pacific Coliseum. Gaps are not uncommon in the PWHL. For example, in the league's second season, the Boston Fleet played at home only once in 44 days in the middle of the season, while the Montreal Victoire that season had only one game overall in a three week span. 

Much like these teams of the past, the Seattle Torrent are set to experience long gaps between home games this season. An early season home stand with more than half of the games played at Climate Pledge Arena this season will take place between December 20 and January 14. That's correct, of the 13 home games scheduled for Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle this season, seven take place in a 24-day span. Following that, there are 

Following their 15-day gap from season opening to their first home game, after their home stand, Seattle fans will wait exactly three weeks before their next home game on February 4. They get another nine days later before another 15-day gap between home games. After their February 28 home game against Las Vegas, however, Seattle fans enter their longest gap of the season, going a full month between home games. Their next home game after February 28, is March 31. The team closes out the season with their busiest home stretch outside the early season stand playing on March 31, April 6, and April 17.

In total, Seattle fans, who showed up as the league's top attended market, were gifted two 15 day gaps, a 21 day gap, and a 31 day gap between games in their season, with more than half of their home games completed in a 24-day span.

If the league was looking to strike while the iron of interest was hot, the lengthy eight-month gap between home games for Seattle Torrent fans, followed by a torrent of gaps in their season, has to be an item the league looks to avoid in the future.