If the PWHL keeps to their target of following similar expansion timelines to last season, fans of the league are now only 60 days away from learning where the next two, or potentially four, PWHL teams will be.
The PWHL has stated many times this season that they intend to target a similar timeline for their next wave of expansion plans to those they followed when the league launched Seattle and Vancouver ahead of 2025-25.
“In a perfect world, if we could work on the timeline that we did last year, that would be great,” PWHL executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told Front Office Sports this month.
That means, that the next round of PWHL expansion could be announced within 60 days. The 2025 expansion announcements began on April 23 when the league formally unveiled Vancouver would become the seventh franchise in PWHL history. Only one week later, the league announced Seattle as the eighth franchise.
With the league repeatedly stating they plan to stick to a similar timeline, fans across North America and globally, can expect news on the next round of PWHL expansion, which the league has said will take the form of a two or four team expansion ahead of the 2026-27 season, to come before the end of April.
The PWHL has again been testing potential expansion markets through their PWHL Takeover Tour.
This season, for the first time, the league announced they'd make multiple stops in five different markets, which many believed to be the frontrunners for PWHL expansion. Those markets include Denver, Detroit, Chicago, Edmonton, and Halifax. The league also returned to Quebec City for the second straight season. Other markets on the PWHL Takeover Tour this season include Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Washington and Dallas.
The league's two newest teams in Seattle and Vancouver are currently leading the PWHL in attendance this season with Vancouver averaging 11,969 per game, and Seattle averaging 11,180.