Toronto Sceptres players celebrate a goal against the Minnesota Frost during PWHL playoff hockey action in Toronto on May 7. The league is expanding to eight teams with the addition of Vancouver and Seattle.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The fast-growing Professional Women’s Hockey League begins its expansion process Wednesday, with its new clubs in Vancouver and Seattle plucking players from the inaugural six teams, shaking up rosters across the league.
Each original team had to make the excruciating decision about which three players to protect from expansion and submit those names by noon Tuesday. The list of players left exposed includes stars such as Sarah Nurse, Brianne Jenner, Hilary Knight, Erin Ambrose and Emma Maltais.
To maintain parity, the league wants Seattle and Vancouver to be competitive right away when they begin to play next season. That means every inaugural team will lose four players in the expansion process, causing a blend of excitement and angst for players and fans.
“There are going to be fans who will be elated in Vancouver and Seattle with the players that they’re able to acquire,” said Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s executive vice-president of business operations. “And I’m sure that there will be fans that will be bummed out, because they’re losing a favourite player.”
Protected players
Teams shielded the following players from the expansion process:
Toronto: Renata Fast (D), Blayre Turnbull (F) and Daryl Watts (F)
Montreal: Ann-Renée Desbiens (G), Marie-Philip Poulin (F) and Laura Stacey (F)
Ottawa: Emily Clark (F), Gwyneth Philips (G) and Ronja Savolainen (D)
Minnesota: Kendall Coyne Schofield (F), Taylor Heise (F) and Lee Stecklein (D)
Boston: Aerin Frankel (G), Megan Keller (D) and Alina Müller (F)
New York: Sarah Fillier (F), Ella Shelton (D) and Micah Zandee-Hart (D)
How PWHL expansion roster building will work
First, Seattle and Vancouver get an exclusive five-day window to sign players. Second, there will be an expansion draft. Once a team loses two players in the expansion process, it can add a fourth name to its protected list.
That five-day signing window will spring open Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET. Seattle and Vancouver can each sign a maximum of five players before it closes.
The PWHL added the signing window to give players some control. In that time, a player left unprotected could sign with Vancouver or Seattle, if she prefers one over the other, rather than risk being chosen in the expansion draft by the team she didn’t prefer.
There’s a caveat. Players whose contracts will expire before the 2025-26 season were not eligible to be protected and may sign with Seattle or Vancouver during the signing window; however, they won’t be eligible for selection in the expansion draft. That means players slated for free agency – such as Toronto’s hot-scoring Hannah Miller, a Vancouver native – could be signed by an expansion club, but only during those five days.
After the signing window shuts, there will be an expansion draft on June 9, in which Seattle and Vancouver will each pick a minimum of seven players, until both have rosters of 12. The draft order is yet to be determined.
“The priority is competitive balance. When you look at our league, over 50 per cent of the games have been decided by one goal or in a shootout,” said Jayna Hefford, the PWHL’s executive vice-president of hockey operations. “That’s something that’s rare in professional sports and something we’re committed to protecting.”
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While the terms of PWHL players’ salaries aren’t disclosed, it’s safe to assume Seattle and Vancouver won’t be able to go wild signing or drafting too many star players and remain under the salary cap.
All eight league teams will then further build out their rosters by selecting players in the PWHL draft, to be held June 24 in Ottawa. It will have six rounds and include 199 players from 15 countries who are recent collegiate graduates or from other pro leagues. Each PWHL team gets 23 active roster spots and three reserve players.
Expanding after just two seasons
The PWHL is entering only its third season but felt it was time to add more teams. More than 1.2 million fans attended its games through the first two seasons, with a 27-per-cent jump in attendance last season. League and team partnerships increased 50 per cent, social media impressions went up 68 per cent, and merchandise sales doubled.
The league’s Takeover Tour of nine neutral-site games drew 123,601 fans. Many at those contests were chanting, “We want a team!” Monitoring its social media chatter, the PWHL found expansion was a leading topic of conversation. Add to those growth metrics the current wave of investment across many women’s sports, and the PWHL had lots of interest from different groups wanting an expansion team.
“Between 40 to 80 per cent of attendees of our Takeover Tour games had not attended other events at those arenas before, so we are bringing new audiences into the arenas and into their databases and allowing them business growth as well,” Scheer said. “We are important in the sports ecosystem, in what we can and will bring to arenas.”
Currently, all PWHL teams are owned by the Mark Walter Group.
Scheer says the PWHL won’t stick to eight teams for many seasons. It aims to keep growing in the near future.
“I think the Walter Group and our board is looking to expand sooner than later,” she said. “My guess is somewhere between years four, five and six we’ll make our way to 10 teams and then probably 12.”