The PWHL has broken every in-arena Canadian and American women's hockey attendance records. The only place for the league to go now, is to take their product outdoors.
The PWHL has broken and rebroken every Canadian and American women's hockey record out there. They've done it in arenas of all sizes, and in markets across North America.
On the American side, those broken records involved Detroit, Denver, Detroit again, Seattle, Washington, and soon, New York City at Madison Square Garden. It could have included TD Garden in Boston as well, but that game will be played a week after Madison Square Garden breaks the record again in Manhattan.
On the Canadian side, the same has occurred in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal.
There are still venues that could conceivably break Canadian and American records if people are squeezed into boxes and standing room is utilized, but the most obvious way for the PWHL to continue to set new records, is to take their product outdoors.
Since the NHL introduced the Heritage Classic in 2003, the league has hosted 46 outdoors games as part of their Heritage Classic, Stadium Series, and Winter Classic.
In 2014 that involved 105,491 fans showing up for a game between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The games, typically held at NFL, CFL, MLB, and NCAA stadiums, have drawn consistently large crowds.
The NHL has played an outdoor game in seven of eight PWHL markets. In 2024, the league played a pair of games at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, only 10 miles from the New York Sirens' home venue, the Prudential Center. Those games drew 79,690 and 70,328 on back to back days. On January 1, 2024, the NHL played at Seattle's T-Mobile Park, drawing 47,313 fans. In 2023, the league played at the historic Fenway Park in Boston drawing 39,243, and in 2202 they played at Target Field in Minneapolis with 38,519 on hand. In 2017, the NHL played at TD Place Stadium, which is attached to the current home of the Ottawa Charge, TD Place Arena, drawing 33,959. That year the league also played at BMO Field in Toronto drawing 40,148 fans. 2014 saw the NHL play at BC Place drawing 54,194 fans. The league has played multiple times in some of these markets. While they've been involved in outdoor games, the only PWHL market to never host a game is Montreal.
Fitting the PWHL's Takeover Tour, the NHL has also used outdoor games as an opportunity to host neutral site games, something that is a rarity in the NHL compared to the PWHL where the Takeover Tour has made neutral site games a regular event and part of the league's strategy.
The NHL has visited places like San Francisco (Santa Clara); Regina, Saskatchewan; Notre Dame, Indiana; and Hamilton, Ontario.
A PWHL outdoor event makes sense on so many levels. The league could run it in conjunction with an NHL event, they could run it alongside an NCAA event, like Penn State's outdoor game they held this season, or they could do a signature event of their own.
It would be easy to see the league set up a game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which is owned by Mark Walter, who also owns the PWHL. Other partners in the ownership group include PWHL board members Stan Kasten, Billie Jean King, and Ilona Kloss. The NHL hosted an outdoor game there in 2014.
With the ever expanding interest in the PWHL, who celebrated 2 million fans this week, and are likely to surpass a million fans this season alone, the opportunity to host a premier outdoor event for the PWHL is waiting.
For the league, having smashed every women's hockey attendance mark and standard ever set, taking the game outdoors, where women first played hockey in the 1800s, could be the next evolution, and the only remaining pathway to continue setting new attendance standards.