By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Professional Women’s Hockey League will look to build on the momentum of a successful inaugural outing when a new season kicks off on Saturday with a growing buzz around the top-flight North American league.
Season tickets were are up over 50% across all six teams this season compared to last, according to Amy Scheer, the senior vice president of business operations for the PWHL, which already has an eye towards expansion.
“When we went on sale with tickets there was a great burst for people to secure their season tickets and to secure their ticket plans,” Scheer told Reuters.
“The interest is there from our fan base to attend more games which is certainly a nice start out of the gate.”
The PWHL broke the record for the most-watched women’s professional ice hockey game days into their inaugural season, and Minnesota clinched the first championship in front of a packed house in May at Tsongas Center in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The recipe for their success came in part from the league’s accessibility, said Scheer, with games available on YouTube and ticket prices set at affordable rates for fans.
“We made it easy for fans to engage with us. We made it easy for fans to participate,” said Scheer.
The league’s six teams play in a relative geographic cluster, with Minnesota the only team outside the Eastern Time Zone of Boston, New York, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.
But a nine-game “neutral site” tour this season will see teams compete in venues coast-to-coast, from Seattle and Vancouver to Buffalo and Raleigh.
Seattle, who will host a game between the Montreal Victoire and the Boston Fleet at Climate Pledge Arena, the home of the NHL’s Kraken, has reportedly expressed an interest in bringing a team permanently to its neighborhood.
“We are exploring the possibility of expansion,” said Scheer.
“We’re talking to 20 plus markets, markets where we think we would be successful, but also to people that have reached out to us who are interested in a team as well. So we’re going through this exploration process.”
The PWHL season kicks off on Saturday, with the Toronto Sceptres hosting the Boston Fleet and the Montreal Victoire playing at home against the Ottawa Charge.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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