The Professional Women’s Hockey League will expand to Vancouver and start playing next season, the League announced Wednesday.
The decision to expand to Vancouver had been rumored for weeks, and was finally confirmed at a press conference in the center of Vancouver on Wednesday morning. The official announcement was made by a local U-11 female hockey team. The girls crowded around a podium, stirring signs to show how bad they wanted Vancouver to get a PWHL team, before announcing the news.
Vancouver was chosen as the seventh PWHL franchise after an eight -month process that saw group expansion offers in more than 20 cities.
And it may not be the only team to join the League for the next season. The PWHL is in negotiations to potentially add a second expansion equipment, which would take the number of equipment to eight.
Amy Scheer, the Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations of the League, said that Vancouver is the first step in a plan of several years to continue growing the league.
“There are several other cities in statement for which we are still working, so we hope to have an advertisement in the future about a second expansion team for next year,” Scheer told CBC Sports in an interview.
Look | PWHL Players Expansion Association: Expansion:
A month after work, Malaika Underwood has been meeting the players and listening to their concerns.
The Vancouver team will take place in Pacific Coliseum, a sand on the site of the land of the National Pacific exhibition. You can settle more than 16,000 fans and the PWHL team will be the anchor tenant.
When evaluating expansion offers, a group within the league analyzed several criteria, from geography and economic opportunities to youth hockey and infrastructure.
Vancouver marked a series of Casillas.
A January PWHL game between the Victire of Montreal and Toronto Sceptres He drew more than 19,000 fans of a Rogers sand with exhausted ticketsHome of the Vancouver Canucks. That made him the best assistance of the nine games on the PWHL Takeover tour, which visited North America cities this season.
But the biggest point of sale may have been the opportunity to be the only tenant of a sand. Vancouver will be the first PWHL team to have its own building. The players will also have their own practice installation with dedicated locker rooms in the bitterness Next Door al Pacific Coliseum. The changing rooms and training facilities will undergo what the League described as “integral improvements” before the team took the ice next season.
“We can mark and build a space designed very well for them and for women, which does not happen in all our markets,” said Jayna Hefford, executive vice president of the league hockey operations.
The PWHL was launched in 2023 with six teams, mainly in the East: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, the New York area, Boston and Minnesota. Like the first six teams, the Vancouver franchise will also be owned and operated by Mark and Kimbra Walter and the Walter group.
The staff has already modeled how to navigate the additional trip, especially when the teams fly commercially. The acquisition tour will return next year, and the league can plan other games in the West.
“I think that among fans who tell us that it is the time and property wanting to invest and grow this league, and everything we have seen is time [for expansion]”Scheer said.” It is time to overcome only being a regional league. “
The second expansion franchise could also be in the west, which could allow East teams to visit two cities on a road trip.
Seattle, which attracted more than 12,000 fans to a game of the PWHL acquisition tour this year, would be a natural neighbor for a Vancouver team and has successful teams that compete in the NWSL and WNBA.
A hockey scene for growing women
The new team will be temporarily known as PWHL Vancouver, while the League develops the team’s brand, including a logo and a name. The colors of the team, Pacific Blue and Cream, also presented themselves on Wednesday.
It marks the return of the female elite hockey to Vancouver, the city where the Canadian women’s national team, including Hefford, captured a gold medal at the 2010 Olympic Games.
The last time the province was home to a professional female hockey team was when the BC Breakers played outside Langley. That team played in the Western Women’s Hockey League (WWHL), which was bent in 2009.
Before that, stars like Cammi Granato and Nancy Drolet played in Vancouver Griffins, a team that competed in the National Women’s Hockey League based in Canada until 2003.
Much has changed in The women’s hockey scene in British Columbia since those teams left the city.
“Now we see several young players, both on the side of the female game and for men who are leaving that area,” said Hefford.
“It really talks about the strength and depth of the bases and the development of minor hockey in that area, which is really important for us. We want to be in those emerging markets where you have many people playing.”
Seven BC players competed in the Canadian women’s development team this year, while three turned the senior national team that has just won money in the World Championship in the Czech Republic. A fourth player of British Columbia, Hannah Miller, was named in the initial list, but failed inelegable to compete for Canada after playing previously for China.
The biggest name could be Chloe Primerano, the defender who captained Canada to Gold in the World Women’s Championship of children under 18 years old earlier this year, and who has the opportunity to make the Canadian Olympic team next year.
First, is the defender of the future of Canada, a gentle threat of smooth skating with a strong intellectual coefficient of hockey. He played against children at Burnaby Winter Club before playing the elite female hockey hockey academy in Kelowna. Primerano graduated from high school a year earlier and now plays at the University of Minnesota.
And now, there is a world in which I could make your PWHL debut in front of a crowd of the hometown in Vancouver.
Details about the expansion draft to come
The next step is to start hiring staff, including the general manager who will have the task of building a list from scratch.
The League will have an expansion draft to help complete the Pwhl Vancouver list, along with a probable second expansion team.
“We have been working for some time when that could be, understanding the priority for us will be parity throughout the League and competitiveness,” said Hefford. “The expectation is that any new team that enters the League would be competitive in the first year. That is the priority to see how we would disperse the players.”
The draft will be carried out before the entrance draft of the league, which is scheduled to be held in June 24 in OttawaBut the date and details about how an expansion draft will still work even to come: the details have anxiously waiting for the players.
The expansion announcement could also attract more players to declare for the entrance draft this year, with up to 46 additional list points available in the League. Both teams would also have a clean salary capital board.
“There is so much depth worldwide,” said Hefford. “Being able to open more places to those players, I think it’s really good for the game.”
