The newly formed Professional Women’s Hockey League will officially announce the locations of its six inaugural franchises during an introductory Zoom call on Tuesday.
The press conference will feature PWHL board member Stan Kasten, Hockey Operations Senior Vice President Jayna Hefford, and a representative from the players’ association. Details about the player selection process for the new league are also expected to be announced.
The PWHL, which will feature a collection of the world’s top female players, plans to launch play in January and is backed by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and retired women’s tennis star Billie Jean King. The group is moving swiftly in essentially building a league from scratch, a process that was spurred in late June when Walter bought out the rival Premier Hockey Federation to clear the way for one North American professional women’s hockey league.
The league provided a sneak peek of the six franchises on Monday. According to the PWHL’s newly launched account on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, the teams will be based in the New York tri-state area, Minnesota, Boston, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Each market had an account with an @PWHL prefix. The sites just happened to be the only six accounts @theofficialpwhl is currently following.
The PWHL has been four years in the making, and launched by the formation of the PWHPA in the aftermath of the CWHL folding in 2019. The PWHPA, made up of a majority of U.S. and Canadian national team members, balked at joining the rival PHF, which at that time was known as the National Women’s Hockey League.
You can watch the announcement right here on Sportsnet.ca, streaming live at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT.
Editor’s note: Refresh page if stream does not appear.
-With files from the Associated Press
