- The PWHL expanded to eight teams for the 2025-26 season, adding franchises in Vancouver and Seattle.
- Attendance for the league’s original six teams grew by 6.6 percent at their home-openers compared to the previous year.
- The PWHL’s average attendance per game already surpasses that of the American Hockey League, the NHL’s top affiliate.
Year over year, the PWHL continues to grow.
It didn’t take long for the league to show that growth in the 2025-26 season, with attendance up across the league’s now eight home-openers.
Not only did the league expand on the ice this season, adding the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrent, but the PWHL continued to grow off the ice as well, adding to its fan base.
Across its Original Six franchises, five of six teams saw attendance grow on opening night, representing a 6.6 percent increase.
American markets, in particular, saw an uptick with the reigning-champion Minnesota Frost adding more than 1,100 fans for their banner-raising night.
While the Boston Fleet and New York Sirens continue to trail the pack with the league’s lowest average attendances, they saw the most significant year-over-year increases in attendance at their home-openers. In New York, the Sirens welcomed 23 percent more fans in year two, despite playing at the Prudential Center on the same day as the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. The Fleet saw the largest increase, watching home-opener attendance balloon by 35.5 percent from 2024-25 to 2025-26.
Expansion teams pushing women’s hockey attendance to new heights
While the Original Six showed positive growth, a pair of record-setting openers for the league’s two newest teams stole the show at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum and Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.
On the opening night at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, the league’s first and only venue where a team is the primary tenant, the Goldeneyes drew a sold-out crowd of 14,958. The mark was a new record for the PWHL for attendance at a permanent home venue. With their own venue, the Goldeneyes became the first PWHL team to play their home-opener with their logo painted at center ice.
It was another new step for the Goldeneyes and their fan base, who immediately embraced the team and league.
‘You know that when you walk into the Pacific Coliseum, you’re coming to see the Goldeneyes, and I think that’s something that’s so special,’ Goldeneyes forward Sarah Nurse told reporters. ‘It’s something that the fans have really embraced. To see the amount of jerseys and merch in the stands – I took a second to look around the entire arena, and it just seemed like everybody had a piece of Goldeneyes merch.’
Vancouver’s home venue record lasted less than a week, however, as the mark was quickly broken at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena for the Torrent’s home opener. Seattle not only surpassed Vancouver’s home venue mark, but it also set the new American professional women’s hockey attendance record (14,288), surpassed the arena’s previous women’s hockey mark set during the 2022 Rivalry Series (14,551) and broke the all-time American women’s attendance record for an indoor game set in 2017 by St. Cloud State and the University of Wisconsin (15,359).
Seattle’s attendance of 16,014 raised the bar for the PWHL.
‘It’s super special. A lot of inaugural (experiences), but there’s something about Seattle that is just so special,’ Seattle Torrent captain Hilary Knight told reporters. ‘I don’t know if it’s the rich history of women’s sports, how you all have started a movement well before we even got here, to the icons and the legends that have graced this arena. We could feel the love…the big takeaway is how special this was. A dream come true, pinch me moment.’
In the past, players have pointed to markets such as Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto as having the most difficult buildings to play in due to large and loud crowds. Opponents immediately took note in Vancouver and Seattle of the crowd factor.
‘It’s fun to play in buildings like this when fans are engaged and loud,’ said Minnesota Frost veteran Kelly Pannek following their game in Seattle. ‘It’s great that they have a new team and set a new record, and it’s fun to see all the other markets in the U.S. compete to try to one-up that mark. Even if it’s not the crowd cheering for you, it’s so fun to play in a sold-out arena.’
Will another league-wide record fall?
In 2024-25, the PWHL drew 653,415 fans across its 90-game regular-season schedule, averaging 7,260 fans per game.
In comparison, the highest average attendance since 1962 for the AHL, the NHL’s top farm league, is 5,982. The AHL set that mark in 2015-16.
Already the second-most attended hockey league in North America behind only the NHL, the PWHL will again break its own records this season with a now 120-game schedule, featuring 30 games in Seattle and Vancouver combined.
Last year, a large chunk of the PWHL’s attendance came on the PWHL Takeover Tour, drawing sold-out crowds in markets like Vancouver and Quebec City, with the total attendance across nine games reaching 123,601.
This season, the Takeover Tour has expanded to 16 games in Chicago, Detroit, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Hamilton, Halifax, Washington, Denver and Dallas. Seattle and Vancouver were venues in 2024-25 but have become permanent fixtures in the league.
With more games in bigger venues and an early increase already in the books, the PWHL continues to grow its footprint and fan base.
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