By Canadian Press

Vancouver’s PWHL expansion team will play out of Pacific Coliseum next season

Apr 23, 2025 | 12:13 PM

VANCOUVER — The Professional Women’s Hockey League has taken its first step in a bigger plan to grow the league.

The PWHL announced an expansion franchise for Vancouver on Wednesday to add a seventh team to start play next season. The league started in 2023 with six teams in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, New York, Boston and Minnesota, and is approaching the end of its second campaign.

The expansion team, which will operate as PWHL Vancouver until a permanent name is announced, will play out of the Pacific Coliseum starting in the 2025-26 season. The team’s colours are described as Pacific blue and cream.

The team will practise steps away at the PNE Agrodome, which, along with the Coliseum, will receive locker room and facility upgrades.

For now, the new team will be without a regional rival, at least for now, with the Minnesota Frost the closest competition in the Central time zone.

Nighttime construction on Hwy 3 in Lethbridge starts April 17

Apr 17, 2025

SASHA launches #BuyABed fundraiser to support vulnerable Lethbridge residents

Apr 04, 2025

$20K grants available: TELUS STORYHIVE Pan-Asian Edition opens applications April 1

Mar 18, 2025

“This is really the first step in a plan to to grow this league and continue to grow the sport,” executive vice-president of business operations Amy Scheer said. “Year one of probably multi-year plan of building and growing.”

The league stated its intention to to add up to two teams in 2025-26 earlier in the year.

Reports this past weekend indicated the PWHL would not only announce Vancouver as its newest team, but also that Seattle was being considered as a second expansion team. The league hosted a game at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on Jan. 5 between the Victoire and Boston Fleet as part of its nine-game Takeover Tour of neutral sites. Attendance was 12,608.

The PWHL would not comment on any other potential markets, but Scheer indicated a second team is on the way.

“I think we are hopeful that we will have a second team announced at some point this year,” Scheer said. “Not sure what the timing will be, but we’re hopeful there will be a second team for this year.”

The process for an expansion team began eight months before the plan came into fruition, with Scheer saying the PWHL spoke to Vancouver for over four months of that time.

Vancouver’s neutral-site PWHL game on Jan 6. between the Toronto Sceptres and Montreal Victoire outdrew the NHL’s Canucks to that point in the season with 19,038 in Rogers Arena to watch the women. It was the fourth-largest attendance for a PWHL game ever.

“When we started this process, we built out a model that had a very long list of criteria. And when you look at all that criteria, Vancouver really checked up all the boxes,” Scheer said. “And so from an infrastructure perspective, the game venue, being able to be a primary tenant at the Pacific Coliseum was huge for us and a first for us. And the practice facility, the Agrodome is right next door.

“So we’ve got a nice little consolidated area for our players to go and practice and play in. So infrastructure was a big check box. Size of the market, the third largest market in Canada, pretty cool to now cover up the top three markets in Canada.”

PWHL executive vice-president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said a date for an expansion draft is in the works and will be announced in the coming weeks.

Despite the short turnaround in preparing for a new season, however, Hefford expects the new team to compete right away.

“I’ll say there’s a priority within our league that these teams can compete on Day 1,” she said. “So unlike what we see in other leagues where maybe it takes a few years for an expansion team to build up to being competitive, we expect the team to be competitive right away.

“There are lot of great players coming in through the entry draft. We’ll also be looking at an expansion draft and how we’ll disperse players who are currently in the league. But we will ensure that they’re competitive right way.”

Hefford said there’s already a mounting interest to join the staff of the expansion team.

“I think as we look to build up the team from a staffing perspective, they may even have an advantage over those first teams because people know what the league is now. They know what it’s about,” she said.

“I think the candidates and the interest we’re receiving and being part of a team like this will be incredible. And so it’s going to be fun to build a new team.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2025.

The Canadian Press

For local news delivered daily to your email inbox, subscribe for free to the Lethbridge News Now newsletter here. You can also download the Lethbridge News Now mobile app in the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.