The PWHL announced Wednesday that it is adding expansion teams in Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, with one more addition planned to bring the league to an even dozen teams as it prepares to double in size since launching in 2024, the report says.
The yet-to-be-named Las Vegas club will be formally introduced at a news conference at the Vegas Golden Knights’ home arena later Wednesday, with Hamilton set to follow on Thursday, the PWHL said. League executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told The Associated Press the expansion process began with the addition of Detroit last week and that while there is excitement, the real work now begins.
The Las Vegas franchise will play at T-Mobile Arena and employ a green-and-gold color scheme, per the report. The move brings the PWHL to the American Southwest a year after the league expanded into the Pacific Northwest with Seattle and Vancouver. The report notes the PWHL said girls’ and women’s hockey participation in Las Vegas has grown by 600% since the Golden Knights began play in 2017, and that the market already includes the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, who relocated in 2018.
Hamilton becomes Ontario’s third PWHL franchise and expands the league’s footprint across the province’s densely populated “Golden Horseshoe” region without drawing fans away from Toronto, which is about 42 miles to the east, the report says. A PWHL neutral-site outing in Hamilton in January drew 16,012 fans, and Scheer said 70% of that turnout had never previously attended a PWHL game. The Hamilton-Burlington region has a population of more than 785,000 and is within an hour’s drive of other centers such as London, Kitchener-Waterloo and the Niagara Region.
Hamilton’s team colors will be gold, maroon and cream and the club will play at the newly renovated downtown TD Coliseum, which the report says has a 16,400 hockey capacity and will share ice with the New York Islanders’ minor-league affiliate relocating from Bridgeport, Connecticut. The PWHL said arena availability was a factor in expansion decisions, with several markets ruled out because of scheduling conflicts.
With San Jose and Denver mentioned as candidates for the next expansion market, the report says the PWHL could organize into two six-team conferences or three four-team divisions based on geography. The league’s original six franchises are New York, Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Minnesota, per the report.
