Pulse of the PWHL: Olympics Provide Tremendous Exposure & Growth Opportunity

By Scott Lowe – MYHockeyRankings.com

The recent unveiling of rosters by the various nations competing in women’s hockey at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Italy reinforced how strong the Professional Women’s Hockey League has become in fewer than three full seasons.

That so many PWHL players will compete in Milan provides further proof we finally have a stable women’s professional league that allows the athletes to earn a livable wage and features the top players on the planet.

And instead of halting any momentum, the PWHL’s upcoming international Olympic break from Jan. 29 until Feb. 25 will allow the league to further showcase its players on the largest stage in front of millions of new viewers who may not even know that the PWHL exists.

Every four years, women’s hockey becomes one of the most talked-about sports during the Olympics as Americans who may have not watched it since the previous winter games tune in to cheer for their nation. Newcomers to the sport almost always are impressed by the speed, skill and intense action they see, and the TV ratings usually are impressive.

Traditionally the end of the Olympics has meant that many of those viewers wouldn’t view another women’s hockey game for four years. Other than the occasional televised college game, there hardly were any other opportunities for them to continue watching women’s hockey and become more than casual fans.

Out of sight, out of mind. But that all changed with the creation of the PWHL in 2023.

It would seem logical that a relatively new league going on hiatus for nearly a month would be hard-pressed to regain the momentum it had created during the first two months of its season when the players return to league play following the Olympics. That should not be the case with the PWHL, however.

The league has weathered multiple international breaks during previous seasons as play has been halted for events such as the Rivalry Series between the United States and Canada and the Women’s World Championship without any issue. But this time the break is longer. And it’s different.

This time, the PWHL international break will provide enormous amounts of exposure and promotion for the league, the value of which cannot begin to be calculated.

Once again, the Olympic women’s hockey tournament will feature the best players in the world competing against each other with national pride on the line on national-television networks worldwide. With so many PWHL players participating in the Olympics, the coverage is going to include almost non-stop references to which PWHL teams the players play for along with plenty of discourse about how important a legitimate North American professional league is to the future growth of the sport.

Providing an opportunity for the world’s top players to compete with and against each other for seven months out of the year by default will improve the overall level or play, which will in turn should make the sport more attractive to potential new fans while also providing more opportunities for them to see the game played at its highest level.

"It's easier to have your confidence keep building up rather than fluctuate just based on a one-game-per-year type of thing, so I've definitely been emotionally a little more stable than I used to be in the past," Ann-Renee Desbiens, Canada’s projected starting goalie said recently as quoted by Donna Spencer of the Canadian Press. "{Playing in the PWHL} definitely changed {me} a bit in a way that allows myself to be a little more consistent in my performance. That's the biggest change I've seen with the level of good games that we play. It's been easier to know my strengths, to work on the things I need to improve, and to get more consistent as a goalie, which I personally believe is the biggest quality that a goalie can have."

Canadian defender Renata Fast concurred with her teammate while adding that so many Olympians coming directly from the PWHL should push the level of play to an all-time high.

"The PWHL has given a different platform …” she said. “It's going to be the fastest, best Olympics. I think us coming right out of a season and going right into the Olympics … it'll be probably a better tournament than we've ever had before."

At hockey’s grassroots levels, participation figures to grow at unprecedented rates now that girls who are interested in the sport have true professional role models to look up to and something that is stable and legitimate to strive for beyond U19 and college hockey.

Women’s hockey never has been able to fully capitalize on the Olympic viewers who were introduced to the sport and intrigued by what they saw because the momentum always faded once the games concluded. There simply wasn’t enough televised high-level women’s hockey to build upon that initial interest. While that has changed in recent years as college games and the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship tournaments have received increased television coverage, the rise of the PWHL should provide the vehicle to bridge that gap and prompt some of the more curious casual observers to consider playing hockey or becoming fulltime fans.  

Certainly, some of the memorable games and moments from past Olympics have created new players and fans, but this time the sport truly has a golden opportunity – pun intended.

“If you look at the history of women's sports post-Olympics … there's always a wonderful tailwind that you get to ride for a bit,” PWHL Executive Vice President Amy Scheer told reporters prior to the start of the PWHL season. “We are setting ourselves up to make sure we take advantage of that tailwind. It will be our job to turn that casual fan who might be tuning in for the first time into a PWHL fan.”

All 23 players on Team Canada’s roster play in the PWHL. Six PWHL teams have players competing for Canada, with six coming from the Toronto Sceptres and five coming from both the Vancover Goldeneyes and Montreal Victoire. The Ottawa Charge and New York Sirens each are sending three players to Italy to represent Canada.

Team USA’s roster includes 16 PWHL players representing five of the league’s eight clubs. Six U.S. players are on the roster of the two-time defending-champion Minnesota Frost, while four play for the Seattle Torrent, three play for the Boston Fleet, two play for Ottawa and one plays for Montreal.

Marie-Philip Poulin, one of the top players in the history of the sport, has earned the nickname “Captain Clutch” by terrorizing the arch-rival United States with countless big goals at important times. She returns to the Canadian roster as its most-experienced player, appearing in her fifth Olympics and having earned three gold medals to go along with one silver. Veteran stalwarts Brianne Jenner, Jocelyne Larocque and Natalie Spooner will be making their fourth Olympic appearances, while Emily Clark, Fast, Sarah Nurse and Blayre Turnbull will be competing for the third time.

Team USA captain Hilary Knight, the all-time leading scorer in women’s international competition, returns to lead the United States in what will be her final Olympics. She has played on teams that have captured one gold and three silver medals. Other U.S. players whose names should be familiar – even to the hockey casuals – include Kendall Coyne Schofield and Lee Stecklein, who are appearing in their fourth Olympics, along with third-timers Cayla Barnes, Alex Carpenter, Megan Keller and Kelly Pannek.

The Olympic women’s hockey tournament also will feature many of the sport’s future superstars, including Canada’s Sarah Fillier and Daryl Watts as well as up-and-coming U.S. players Taylor Heise and Gwyneth Philips from the PWHL and college stars Abbey Murphy, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards.

In addition, a minimum of 12 more PWHL players are expected to represent other competing nations in Milan. That would bring the total number of league players competing in the Olympics to more than 50. On top of the worldwide exposure the players and league will receive, there surely will be conversations among the competitors about the success the PWHL has enjoyed to date as well as some friendly recruiting of players from other nations by members of the Canadian and American teams.

The best thing about this year’s Olympic women’s hockey competition is that everyone has a place to go play when it’s over, and any new fans who get hooked on the sport will be able to follow most of the top players easily in the PWHL. Before the PWHL existed, some players would go off to play in European or other foreign leagues, a few others would come back to the U.S. or Canada to play at the college level and a very few would return to play in a disorganized North American professional league that was struggling financially to the point that most players couldn’t even afford to participate.

There are no such issues in 2026. Pretty much everyone will have a place to play – either in North America or abroad – and most of the best and most-recognizable players are in the PWHL, which makes all league games readily available for viewing via over-the-air broadcast networks and live webstreams.

While the PWHL’s impressive in-person attendance has been well-documented thanks to many record-setting single-game turnouts and with more than 1.2 million fans attending contests during the first two seasons, the broadcast and online viewership to date may be even more impressive thanks to the PHWL’s multi-platform approach both in North America and abroad. Games played during the 2025-26 season will be available in more than 96-million homes, with more than 7,200 minutes of live action from 120 regular-season games available for live or on-demand viewing around the world. Viewers from 106 nations watched PWHL contests during the 2024-25 season.

And these games are not hard to find; some might even argue that they are easier to locate than those National Hockey League contests that are blacked out in many markets and only available on ESPN+ in the United States.

As anyone who has attended a professional hockey game can attest, however, nothing beats seeing a game in person. Television broadcasts and webstreams simply don’t do justice to the speed, skill, grace and physicality of the sport.

Because of the league’s overwhelming success during its first two seasons, the PWHL was able to expand from six to eight franchises prior to 2025-26 seasons. Seattle and Vancouver were awarded teams to go along with the original-six franchises in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Minnesota, New York and Boston. There have been rumblings about more potential additions in the very near future, maybe as soon as next season.

The PWHL also created a Takeover Tour during the 2024-25 campaign, exposing the league and its players to new fans by holding nine neutral-site contests in professional sports markets that didn’t have PWHL teams. More than 123,000 fans attended those games, with 80 percent of them seeing the PWHL in person for the first time.

The PWHL announced in November that it would expand the Takeover Tour for the 2025-26 campaign, with 16 games scheduled in 10 different markets and some cities hosting more than one event. The 2025-26 edition of the Takeover Tour includes stops in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Washington, D.C., in the United States as well as Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Quebec City and Winnipeg north of the border.

Half of this season’s 16 Takeover Tour contests have been played thus far, with each game decided by a single goal and an average of more than 9,000 fans attending each contest. Future games will be played in Washington, D.C. (Jan. 18), Denver (Jan. 25 and March 15), Winnipeg (March 27), Chicago (March 25), Detroit (March 28), Calgary (April 1) and Edmonton (April 7).

Those who are introduced to women’s hockey and develop an interest in the sport during the Olympics not only will be able to continue following their new favorite athletes for the remainder of the PWHL season via television and the internet, but also more potential fans than ever will have a realistic opportunity to attend a game in person. Each Takeover Tour event includes open team practices, community clinics and other opportunities to see and interact with the players during their visits.

Fans also will have be able to watch their Olympic heroes play during the most exciting time of the PWHL season as teams jockey for playoff seeding and compete for the Walter Cup.

The Olympic women’s hockey competition begins at Milano Roh Hockey Arena Thursday, Feb. 5, with both the United States and Canada in action on Day 1. The U.S. and Canada play each other Feb. 10, the final day of preliminary-round play. Quarterfinals are scheduled for Feb. 13 and 14 and semifinals will take place Feb. 16. The bronze- and gold-medal games will be played Feb. 19.

CLICK HERE for the complete Olympic women’s and men’s hockey schedules.

U.S. viewers can watch women's hockey on NBC, USA Network or CNBC, and stream all games on Peacock. Canada’s hockey coverage will be provided by CBC/Radio-Canada, TSN and Sportsnet, with CBC Gem providing streaming coverage.

Check local listings to find out how to view each game.

CLICK HERE for the Team USA Women’s Hockey Olympic Roster

CLICK HERE for the Team Canada Women’s Hockey Olympic Roster