In January 2024, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, PWHL, will ice six teams in six cities for its inaugural season.
The announcement was made on Tuesday, and the six cities are Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Boston, New York, and Minneapolis-St Paul.
Jayna Hefford is the senior vice president for hockey operations for the PWHL.
“When we looked at these markets, it wasn’t about whether there was a PHF team in the past or a PWHPA group in the past,” Hefford said on NHL.com. “It was just about finding the right markets, the right partners, the right facilities, availability. It’s a bit of a puzzle to put together.”
The PWHL website cites a 24-game regular season.
Brian Burke has been installed as executive director of the new league’s players’ union.
“We are committed to a platform of fairness and equity and equality and the core values that serve this league will not ever change — that’s No. 1,” Burke said in a Tweet. “No. 2 is, we don’t care where you played before we got here. We’re excited to have you here. If you can play here, you can play.”
The PWHL is backed, financially, by Mark and Kimbra Walter. Mark Walter is the CEO of investment firm Guggenheim Partners, and is a part-owner of MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers and co-owner of Chelsea FC in English soccer’s Premier League.
All assets from the Premier Hockey Federation were purchased by the Walter’s foundation, effectively ending that league’s existence.
Stan Kasten, another Dodgers part-owner and the team’s president, will sit on the PWHL board of directors.
“Our business model goes out 10 years,” Kasten said on Forbes.com. “We’ll go longer when we need to, but we understand that this is going to be expensive, particularly in the early years. We’re prepared for that, and we think of all those amounts of money not as being expenses or losses. We think of them as investments in what we are building.”
General managers for the six teams will be named later this week, with team names, logos, and league logos to be released later this fall.
“I’m very excited for the players to be a part of this today,” Hefford said. “This is what we’ve been building toward for some time and they’re going to have the opportunity to be part of this special moment. I’m excited for players of my generation, the ones who came before me that put so much into this.
“And I’m equally excited for all the new fans of our game, men and women, boys and girls, who are going to be inspired by the women that go onto the ice in this league. We’re going to represent what it means to be strong, to be powerful and to be determined. We’re just getting started here.”
The financial backing will crucial to the success of the PWHL on a long-term basis.
“We didn’t do this for the short term. We didn’t do it for the long term. We did it for it to be permanent. We have plans,” Kasten said. “We understand this is going to be expensive, particularly in the early years. But we’re prepared for that and we think of all those amounts of money not as being expenses or losses. We think of them as investments in what we are building.”
Use CodePHN15 The PWHL logo will look really sharp on this chair.
Pro Hockey News looks forward to covering the new league and wishes them good ice, big crowds, and long success.
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