LOWELL, Mass. — The Walter Cup was handed out to Minnesota on Wednesday night, Kendall Coyne Schofield’s baby was placed in the trophy, and afterward, the champagne flowed in the dressing room. And with that, the PWHL’s inaugural season has officially wrapped.
It’s a fitting end to an entertaining and successful season. League leaders wanted the best quality hockey and parity across its teams — and they got their wish with a No. 4 “underdog” Minnesota team playing as many games as possible to win the Walter Cup.
GO DEEPER
PWHL Minnesota wins first-ever Walter Cup championship: 'We knew we had to have it'
“We didn’t know our playoffs until after the last game on the last day,” said PWHL Advisory Board member Stan Kasten. “You see how close and competitive the playoffs have been, and as exciting as this is for all of us, we can’t wait to get started on Year 2 because we know with a whole summer to prepare, it’s going to be even better.”
Advertisement
With the draft (June 10) and free agency (June 21) only a few short weeks away, it’s time to turn our attention to the 2024-25 season. Besides roster building, what can the league learn from its first season to make Year 2 even better?
Here are the top five lessons and priorities for the PWHL heading into next season.
Get the branding right
Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Team names (and logos) are coming.
On the TSN broadcast of Game 5 on Wednesday night, Amy Scheer, the league’s senior vice president of business operations, said that names and logos will be announced in August.
The league has already announced that redesigned jerseys are coming for 2024-25 as part of an expanded partnership with Bauer Hockey. The equipment company will be the PWHL’s first official jersey partner, responsible for the official game and replica jerseys.
GO DEEPER
PWHL names Bauer official jersey partner, to unveil redesigned jerseys in 2024-25
“Fans can expect an elevated design and more to be passionate about, and more in terms of what will be included on the jerseys,” Mary-Kay Messier, the vice president of global marketing for Bauer Hockey, told The Athletic.
The league had previously trademarked some ideas — Toronto Torch, Ottawa Alert, Montreal Echo, Boston Wicked, New York Sound and Minnesota Superior — but it would be shocking if those were the names they used. Why delay the process if you’re just going to use the names people didn’t like seven months ago?
Besides getting the names and logos right, the league needs to be better about merchandise — from the design options, availability, size ranges, etc.
The appetite for PWHL merchandise — whether it’s jerseys, T-shirts, sweaters or other gear — is massive, which is a good problem to have. But the league didn’t quite hit the mark this year — and they know that, as Kasten said merchandise is the most obvious area of improvement for Year 2.
“The one good thing is we sold everything we could make. I mean, it was just flying off the shelves when we could get it to arenas,” he said. “But we have more coming and more designs and greater inventory. It’s going to get a lot better.”
Stay innovative
The PWHL has shown a willingness to try a creative or different approach than what has previously existed in the sport — or rather, what has existed in the NHL.
The 3-2-1 points system — where a regulation win is three points, an overtime or shootout win is two points and an overtime or shootout loss is one point — was an easy win. The “jailbreak rule,” which ends a penalty if the short-handed team scores, has been wildly popular.
Advertisement
The Draft Gold Plan and allowing the No. 1 team to pick its playoff opponent made for meaningful hockey down to the final game of the regular season. Kloss and King said they loved those new rules. “I think you can innovate and still keep tradition,” Kloss said.
That has been the goal with the PWHL’s tweaks: to do something new (and fun) that doesn’t change the game of hockey.
“Of course we’re going to debrief postseason. But right now, the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” senior vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said. “So we will continue to try to be creative, think outside the box and present the game in new ways to people.”
Another unique element of the PWHL’s season worth celebrating is that every single game was available for free on YouTube, in addition to the regional and national TV rights deals in place.
For years, women’s hockey games have either not been widely available or have been broadcast on what looked like a doorbell camera. Visibility had long been the biggest issue facing women’s professional hockey, and the PWHL got it right by making every game easily accessible this season — despite the fact it came at a massive cost.
“Any person who loves women’s hockey or hockey could follow it,” said Kloss. “We felt that was hugely important.”
“We made a conscious choice to spend a lot of money to make a major professional broadcast,” Kasten said. “It was expensive, but we think it’s going to pay off for us in the long run.”
Kasten added that while expenses were high, league revenue “exceeded” their early projections, thanks in part to spending money on things like broadcasting and visibility.
The arena matters
Finding the right facilities for games and training was a major part of the building process. The league had certain standards of professionalism it needed to meet — but also needed availability from potential venues.
Advertisement
In the end, some teams had it better than others. Minnesota played games at the Xcel Energy Center and trained at TRIA Rink — two facilities shared with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. Ottawa played and trained at TD Place Arena and had the league’s best average attendance figures.
Montreal split time between Verdun Auditorium and the 10,000-seat Place Bell, where they played in the postseason. The team also set a world record for attendance with 21,105 fans at the Bell Centre. It’s reasonable to think Montreal would do well with more games at Place Bell next season, short of a full-time move to the venue.
Toronto’s arena situation has been a hot topic since the first game of the season, with tickets being so hard to get. The team played at the Mattamy Athletic Centre — formerly Maple Leaf Gardens — which is a nice facility and had a great atmosphere. But with a 2,600 cap on fans, it’s not ideal. The league has been happy with Mattamy as a home base, but inevitably the league is going to need to look at the next step.
Without moving out of the downtown core, the options for growth in Toronto are pretty limited: either Scotiabank Arena or Coca-Cola Coliseum, the home rink of the AHL’s Toronto Marlies that seats over 8,000. PWHL Toronto played in — and sold out — both rinks this season, but a full-time move to either venue would be difficult given that each building has full-time tenants and other events.
“We saw great success in the playoffs at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, but we also had a great, successful season at Mattamy,” said Hefford. “I think we’re at a place right now where we’re considering all the options.”
Then there’s Boston, which plays 30 miles outside the city in Lowell, Mass. The arena itself, at least during the playoffs, was a lot of fun. Game 5 was sold out and loud. But the team also averaged the second-fewest fans per game this season. The question is whether there’s a better option in the city, or if the team would just move to another spot outside Boston.
Agganis Arena, home of the Boston University men’s hockey team, could make sense, with a 6,300-seat capacity, six visiting locker rooms and other amenities. But the BU women’s team doesn’t even get to play there, so optics-wise, would that be an issue?
Advertisement
Boston also trains at the Boston Sports Institute, which is a nice facility, but it’s nearly 30 miles from Lowell and 17 from Boston. That makes it tricky for players to choose where to live and guarantees a drive — Boston traffic is notoriously awful — no matter where you’re going.
It’s hard to sit here and say the league got the arenas terribly wrong when attendance averaged over 5,000 this season and set several records. But at the very least, markets like Boston and Toronto could be better optimized. And that leaves us with …
The New York situation
While other markets could use some improvements, New York is a separate priority for the league entirely.
New York home games were scattered over three arenas in three states this season — UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island; Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Conn., and Prudential Center in Newark. The practice rink, the team’s fourth facility, is in Stamford, Conn.
The team struggled to draw fans, finishing with the worst attendance in the league. One game in Bridgeport had only 728 fans in attendance — the league’s only game with fewer than 1,000 fans this season.
Besides attendance issues, New York staff spent a lot of time packing up the team’s equipment and moving from rink to rink this season, which never really gave anybody a sense of home.
“We’re aware the New York situation wasn’t ideal this year,” Kasten said last week. “We’re not ready to say here today which way we’re going to go or what we’re going to do. But I can tell you that’s certainly one of the things we’re to spend a lot of time looking at.”
Finding one or two home rinks for New York would be ideal — perhaps a combination of UBS or the Prudential Center or having a specialty game or two at Madison Square Garden. New York’s best turnout was more than 5,100 fans at Prudential Center in April, while the team sat in last place. That would suggest Prudential is the best option for a home base, should the New Jersey Devils be willing partners — and they have been in women’s hockey in the past when the New York Riveters played there — and have the building availability.
Advertisement
Prudential is 64 miles from the Stamford practice facility, where many players lived last season. Can they move practice rinks? Can players afford to move into bigger (more expensive) cities?
There’s a lot to consider with New York and there doesn’t seem to be a quick and easy fix. But the market is certainly a priority for the league to make work.
“We obviously want to be in New York,” Kasten said at the start of the season. “If you’re a league at all you have to be in New York.”
What to do in lieu of expansion
League leaders — including King — have made it pretty clear that expansion is not coming for next season because they want to get the original franchises and infrastructure “right.”
Without expansion — or a development league — the ecosystem for pro women’s hockey in North America is very small. Expecting a league that’s not even one year old to have a development league — when it took a league like the NBA decades to create its own domestic development league — is not realistic. But it’s also going to be hard to see players forced to retire due to a lack of roster spots in the lone North American league.
Is it as simple as making the reserve player lists bigger? Could the PWHL strike some kind of agreement with European leagues like the SDHL in the future?
“Trying to figure out what the right solution for that is in the short term is at the top of our list of things to do,” said Hefford. “We are thinking creatively about places that players can play if they don’t end up on our 23- or 26-player roster next season.
“There’s many people that want to figure out a solution to this so that we can keep more women playing the game at the highest level.”
When it comes to the fan experience in lieu of expansion, it’s more straightforward: more neutral site games.
Games in Detroit and Pittsburgh were a success for the league and got women’s pro hockey in front of thousands of fans who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to see Toronto or Boston play this season.
Advertisement
The league will play at least 30 games next season — versus 24 regular-season games this year — and Kasten has already said we can expect more neutral-site games at NHL venues in 2024-25.
It would be nice to see the league head to cities outside its current geographical cluster — save for Minnesota — with games in the Midwest (Chicago), the Pacific Northwest (Seattle or Vancouver) or California.
(Top photo: Troy Parla / Getty Images)