PWHL to visit 6 Canadian cities on Takeover Tour

The PWHL will play neutral-site games in six different Canadian cities this season, as the league plans to add new teams as soon as next season.

For the second season in a row, the eight-team league will play games in Quebec City (Jan. 11, Vancouver vs. Montreal) and Edmonton (Dec. 27, Minnesota vs. Vancouver and April 6, Boston vs. Vancouver).

Four new Canadian cities have also been added to the league's Takeover Tour this season: Halifax (Dec. 17, Toronto vs. Montreal and Jan. 11, Ottawa vs. Boston), Hamilton (Jan. 3, Seattle vs. Toronto), Winnipeg (March 22, Montreal vs. Ottawa) and Calgary (April 1, Toronto vs. Ottawa).

More than 123,000 fans attended games during the league's nine-stop Takeover Tour last season. That included games in Vancouver and Seattle, which the league selected as its two expansion franchises ahead of the this upcoming season.

This time around, the league will play 16 neutral-site games across 11 sites in North America.

Some of those could end up being the next PWHL expansion markets, as the league has made it clear that adding teams in Vancouver and Seattle was the first step in growing the league's footprint.

"We are going to expand at least two to four teams next year," the PWHL's executive vice president of business operations, Amy Scheer, told members of Ottawa City Council last month. "We are in growth mode. This league is exploding."

Officials in Quebec City, in particular, have been vocal about wanting a PWHL team to play out of the Videotron Centre, an arena designed for an NHL team that has never come. Infrastructure has been a major factor in where the PWHL places its teams.

A game in Quebec City last season sold out, drawing more than 18,000 fans. Most were cheering for the Montreal