Speculation Continues To Grow Ahead Of PWHL's "Major Announcement"

The PWHL will step into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Thursday to make a major announcement, one a league media bulletin says "will mark a significant milestone for professional women’s hockey."

The announcement will involve the presence of PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford, executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer, and PWHLPA president and Montreal Victoire forward Laura Stacey.

Ahead of the announcement, speculation has grown among fans anticipating another major moment for the PWHL and professional women's hockey overall.

The announcement comes ahead of the 2026-27 PWHL season, which will see the league enter with new teams in Detroit, Hamilton, LAs Vegas, and San Jose, joining Seattle and Vancouver expansion teams who entered the league last season, and the PWHL's original six teams in Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, and Toronto.

It's a hotly debated question among fans, and with the amount of growth and new initiatives and partnerships the PWHL has continued to form, the options are endless.

Some have looked at the league's wording as the announcement marking a "significant milestone" insinuating an event or partnership that has not yet been met by professional women's hockey. Whether or not that is the case will be seen as the PWHL has often ignored previous leagues in their commentary on the growth of women's hockey.

One of the leading points of speculations, with reports emerging that the announcement could be the PWHL becoming the new focal point of the now abandoned "Hockey Night In Canada." In June 2026, CBC and Rogers Sportsnet ended a sub-licensing agreement for the entity, but the CBC stated they would continue to utilize Hockey Night In Canada for other purposes outside the NHL.

"It's fair to say CBC will no longer be carrying NHL hockey, however, we own the HNIC mark and will be using the iconic brand in different ways going forward," said CBC head of public affairs Chuck Thompson at the time.

Many believe the iconic weekly hockey broadcast, which launched in 1931, could become the premiere weekly broadcast for the PWHL with the NHL no longer being featured on CBC.

When the PWHL announced Scripps Sports would be the league's national broadcaster in the United States, it came with the announcement that the network would host a national "game of the week" each Saturday. Should the PWHL and CBC re-launch Hockey Night in Canada, it was a broadcast that typically involved a double-header each Saturday night.

Earlier this month, Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor stated that the PWHL would be hosting an All-Star game in Toronto this season. Lawlor spoke about the event as something that his company would be broadcasting in 2026-27.

Lawlor told BNN Bloomberg that Scripps Sports would “start with opening night, go through their All-Star Game in Toronto, we’ll carry semi-finals, and then the Walter Cup finals again.”

It's possible an All-Star game could be featured as part of the announcement as well, whether it's tied to broadcasting or not. Despite Lawlor's comments, the PWHL has yet to confirm or announce if an All-Star game will be played in 2026-27. 

One theory behind the delay in announcement is that an All-Star game announcement could reveal any conference, or divisional alignments the league has planned this season, if they choose to align their All-Star events in that manner. Past iterations of women's hockey All-Star games, including the PHF's final All-Star event in 2023, featured a Team USA, Team Canada, and Team World playing a 3-on-3 tournament. The PWHPA also hosted an All-Star weekend that year playing a 3-on-3 event and hosting a skills competition in Ottawa. Due to the recent hosting of All-Star events in both previous professional iterations, some think that this type of announcement would not meet the standard of a "milestone" for women's hockey.

Other rumours that have floated around this week include the reasoning for bringing the announcement to the Hockey Hall of Fame itself. There has been increased pressure on the Hall of Fame to provide equitable historical representation, and meet induction minimums for women, as well as to better showcase women's hockey. There have been rumblings that it could include moving the Walter Cup alongside the Stanley Cup inside the Hockey Hall of Fame's Esso Great Hall permanently, the same location as the PWHL's announcement. The Hockey Hall of Fame currently has a women's display, but most of the women's hockey history inside the Hall is currently difficult to find, and sparse in nature compared to almost every element of the men's game.

Still others have speculated that the league could be announcing a new collective agreement, or amendments to the current CBA. This rumour gained traction due to the presence of PWHLPA president and Montreal Victoire forward Laura Stacey. The connection could also be made to Stacey and the Hall of Fame as her great-grandfather, King Clancy, was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1958.

It's unlikely a new CBA has been struck however, as players, agents, and team staff that reached out to The Hockey News following the league's teaser denied any knowledge of the CBA being opened. There are certainly many points players will want to address when the current CBA expires in 2031, but PWHL leadership has publicly stated on multiple occasions over the last year that they are not ready to re-open the CBA yet. That doesn't, however, mean that any announcement could not come with some adaptions. All-Star game compensation is addressed in the current CBA, although media rights revenue sharing is absent. Another aspect that could be revisited prior to 2031 is the current limitation to a maximum 32 games in a season. The PWHL played 24 games in their inaugural campaign before climbing to 30 games the past two seasons. With a 12 team league, there could be pressure, specifically with national broadcasting deals now in place on both sides of the border, to expand the schedule beyond the 32-game limit soon.