We have reached a third of the season in the PWHL, so I took a look at the attendance so far in the league. 

Let’s start market by market. 

Not including the home games of the Takeover Tour, three teams have an average higher than 11,000 fans. The highest average attendance per game belongs to Vancouver with 11,459 fans, followed by Montreal with 11,196, and then Seattle with 11,065. 

That tells me the league was spot on choosing new markets. Because it’s one thing to draw a huge crowd for one game, like Seattle and Vancouver did last season, it’s another to do it on a more consistent basis.

Montreal edges Toronto within the original six, but their average includes an early game at Bell Center. Removing that from the equation, Montreal's average is 8,892. Still, it tops Toronto and their 8,068 fans at Coca-Cola Coliseum. 

Can you believe these two teams were playing in front of 3,000 fans in season one? 

In between Montreal and Toronto, there’s the Minnesota Frost. But the sample is small since the team played only three games at the Grand Casino Arena. Still, the average is 8,714 fans. 

Ottawa comes sixth with 7,112 fans on average. This is almost 22% more seated fans than what the new venue in Ottawa will provide, hence everything the league did to try to make that change. 

Then we have Boston with 5,006 and bringing up the rear is New York with an average of 3,033. 

When we compare those attendance numbers to last year’s, it’s a pretty positive report. 

Let me explain it that way: five of the six original teams are up, including New York. 

Yes, you have read that right, including New York. That says it all!

Even with the smallest attendance average in the PWHL, New York is up 9.7% compared to last season. Not enough to think they will sell out Madison Square Garden on April 4, but still, it’s better than it was. 

Montreal, at Bell Place only, is up 6.5%. Ottawa is up 8.3%, as if the fans wanted to send a message and prove the city wrong. 

The sample might be too small in Minnesota, but so far, it’s a growth of 25% compared to last year. That said, compared to the first three home games of last season, it’s still up by 22%. The Frost play three more times at home before the Olympic break, so let’s see how that goes. 

In Boston, the decision to play more games at Agganis Arena seems to have paid off with a growth of 9.1%. However, there’s only one game left there, compared to seven games at Tsongas Center. 

Only Toronto is down, with a decrease of 2.6% compared to the average at Coca-Cola Coliseum last season. 

If we only take the original six, the average is 7,005 spectators, compared to 6,538 at the end of the 2024-25 season, up by 7.1% so far. 

By adding Vancouver and Seattle into the mix, the average grew to 8,064, up by 23.3%, which is a phenomenal number.  

Without taking the Takeover Tour into consideration, seven games drew more than 10,000 fans. Two were held in Montreal (actually, one in Montreal, one in Laval), two more were held in Vancouver, and three happened in Seattle. 

The total number those two markets brought to the league so far is a little over 100,000 fans. 

That says it all about how important Vancouver and Seattle are to this league.

The only negative this season is the Takeover Tour. This is where the league lost some steam. The eight neutral site games have averaged 10,896, while last season, the nine games averaged 13,763 fans, a loss of 20.8%. 

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. From the 19 Takeover Tour games since the inaugural season, four of the last seven places are games held this season. 

Chicago is last. Dallas in third from last. Detroit went from 13,736 to 14,288 to 9,624. Edmonton went from 17,517 to 10,264. 

Still pretty decent numbers if you take them separately, but when compared to last season or the one before, it still counts as a decrease. 

Even Quebec City wasn’t able to duplicate last year’s numbers, going from 18,259 to 14,624. But at the same time, how can you complain about having 14,000 fans in attendance? 

This season also brought in a strong first showcase in Hamilton with 16,012 fans, while Halifax sold out twice with 10,452 and 10,438. 

By adding the Takeover Tour games, the total average is 8,579 fans, compared to 7,260 at the end of last season, an increase of 18.2%. 

It’s a very positive report, and one the league should be proud of. 

And with games still to play at TD Garden, MSG, Scotiabank Arena, and the Takeover Tour having scheduled games in Washington, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Detroit, there’s a strong possibility that this will be the most attended PWHL season, on average, in their short history.