PWHL selects Seattle for 2nd expansion franchise - ESPN

The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will expand to eight teams next season by adding Seattle as its second new franchise alongside Vancouver, and The Associated Press has learned that plans are already in the works to add two more in a year's time.

Seattle's addition, announced Wednesday, gives the PWHL a strong foothold in the Pacific Northwest and comes a week after the unveiling of the new team in Vancouver for the 2025-26 season. The westward move broadens the league's reach across the continent in two markets with a history supporting women's sports and separated by just a three-hour drive.

«Of course the geography makes a ton of sense and I think we have a built-in rivalry here that will just naturally happen,» executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told the AP.

«But most importantly is they met all the criteria in terms of what we were looking for,» she added. «There's just a ton of business reasons to do it. And those are the only things we're focused on.»

The two-team expansion for Season 3 is only the beginning for a league that launched in January 2024 with five Eastern franchises — Boston, New York, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto — and one in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The PWHL plans to grow to 10 teams for its 2026-27 season, a person with knowledge of discussions told the AP on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private. The person said the league is accelerating its plans based on the strength of responses and feedback received during its eight-month expansion search in which the PWHL considered more than 20 markets.

Scheer didn't entirely dispute the plan, without providing an exact timetable.

«I think we've been pretty clear from the outset that this is the first year