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The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) will introduce expansion teams in Hamilton, Ontario, and Las Vegas ahead of the 2026-27 season, further accelerating its rapid growth. The announcement was made Wednesday, adding to the league’s rising profile.
Hamilton and Las Vegas will increase the league to 11 teams, with a 12th team expected to be announced soon. Detroit was confirmed last week as the ninth PWHL franchise. This expansion aligns with the league’s pursuit of a significant U.S. broadcast rights deal and more corporate partnerships—a strategy league officials believe will be easier to execute with 12 teams instead of eight.
Hamilton showed strong fan support in January when more than 16,000 spectators attended a game between the Toronto Sceptres and Seattle Torrent at TD Coliseum, where the new Hamilton team will play home games. Data indicated that 70 percent of attendees were first-time PWHL viewers, easing concerns that a Hamilton team would draw fans away from the Toronto Sceptres.
Jayna Hefford, PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations, praised Hamilton’s rich hockey heritage, saying, “Hamilton and its surrounding communities have long been central to the growth of girls’ and women’s hockey, producing generations of talented players and passionate fans.” She added that the strong response during the Takeover Tour game at TD Coliseum confirmed local enthusiasm for a dedicated team.
Hamilton is recognized as having one of the world’s largest concentrations of girls’ hockey players and is positioned to attract fans from surrounding Ontario regions such as Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Niagara, and London. Notable PWHL players like Sarah Nurse, Renata Fast, and Emma Maltais hail from the Hamilton area.
A key advantage for Hamilton was its recently renovated TD Coliseum arena, which can accommodate professional tenants without NHL scheduling conflicts. The venue will also host an American Hockey League team next season. Oak View Group, TD Coliseum’s operator, cooperated with the PWHL to establish the Hamilton franchise. With Hamilton joining, Canada will have five PWHL teams, alongside Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Las Vegas represents new territory for the league, which has never played there before. The PWHL is counting on the city’s burgeoning interest in girls’ and women’s hockey, fueled by the success of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. The Las Vegas team will play at the Golden Knights’ home venue, T-Mobile Arena.
Since the Golden Knights began play in 2017, hockey participation among girls and women in Nevada has grown by 600 percent, though numbers remain smaller than in many Canadian regions. According to USA Hockey, 532 females were registered to play hockey in Nevada in the 2024-25 season.
Las Vegas has become a hub for new professional sports franchises recently. The PWHL cited the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, who averaged over 11,500 fans per game last season, as evidence of strong local support for women’s sports.
Amy Scheer, the league’s executive vice president of business operations, said, “From the staggering growth of youth hockey participation to the passionate support for the Golden Knights and Aces, the Las Vegas community has enthusiastically embraced both hockey and women’s sports. While professional women’s hockey may be new to the market, we know Las Vegas is ready to welcome and champion a PWHL team of its own.”
Las Vegas will be the league’s first team in the American Southwest, which could ease travel challenges for teams in Vancouver and Seattle. The league is reportedly considering splitting into two conferences.
The PWHL chose Las Vegas over more traditional hockey markets, viewing it as a strategic investment for a league operating under a single-entity ownership. All 11 PWHL teams, including the new ones, are owned by The Walter Group. The Golden Knights and MGM Resorts International, co-owners of T-Mobile Arena, supported the Las Vegas bid.
Team names and logos for Hamilton and Las Vegas will be revealed later. The Las Vegas team’s colors will be green and golden yellow, with green symbolizing the desert and surrounding mountains, and gold representing the city’s glamour and nodding to the Golden Knights. Hamilton’s colors will be gold, maroon, and cream; gold reflecting the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats and maroon symbolizing the city’s steel heritage.
The new teams will add players through an expansion process, though the league has yet to finalize the details. It’s unclear how they will be positioned in the upcoming entry draft. A memo from the PWHL Players Association indicated the league will not hold an expansion draft this season, unlike the last season’s process in Seattle and Vancouver. The abundance of players with expiring contracts complicates such a draft.
Instead, the league may use a multi-phase approach starting with teams protecting three players, aiming to maintain competitive balance while giving players input, according to Hefford. “Those are difficult things sometimes to match, so it’s been ongoing collaborative work with the [players’ association],” she told CBC Sports. “Once we have certainty on number of teams and location, then there will be more certainty in that process.”
