2024 marked a new year in women’s hockey as the PWHL began. Breaking attendance records, new rules and plenty of body checking – we take a look at what this new league brings to the table.
What is the PWHL?
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is a new league established as a unified league across North America with a split of teams from the USA and Canada. The League was only announced in August 2023 meaning a tight turnaround before the opening game on the 1st January 2024. Fortunately, the league began as planned with a new hope for women’s hockey and only minor teething problems.
The league is of course not the first of its kind. North America has seen two women’s hockey leagues in recent years: the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL). The League’s faced difficulties as sponsorships and talent split between the two leagues. Despite attempts to sustain the league with external investment, the CWHL disbanded in 2019 leaving a single league. Unfortunately, the NWHL was controversial amongst players with over 200 announcing the format was unsustainable and they would not take part. While negotiations did bring some success and the rebranding of the league to the Premier Hockey Federation, it became clear a long-term change was needed. Bring in the PWHL.
The PWHL intends to be different to its predecessors. The league was bought by the Mark Walter Group. As part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chelsea FC the league gains the benefit of an experienced sports owner. Players are represented by a formal union and multiple rights have been secured for players.
Six teams were formed ahead of the inaugural season: Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, New York and Ottawa. Currently the teams are just referred to by their city names but it is expected that branding for each team will come in the 2025 season.
Where can I watch?
TV deals have been agreed in both territories represented by the league. Canadian coverage will be split between TSN, CBC and Sportsnet while US coverage will be provided by MSG Networks and NESN in the New York and New England Areas.
Most notably for viewers however is the league’s commitment for every game to be shown on the league’s youtube channel. The PWHL channel streams every game for free with full coverage and has already proved popular. Coverage of the opening game alone saw a total of 130.1k watch at least part of the stream with coverage peaking at just 15,986 concurrent viewers. Viewers were tuning in for large parts of the game with an average view duration of approximately 25 minutes.
What’s fan reactions been?
As mentioned, viewing figures have been strong and social media interactions suggest a new audience of fans being reached. The numbers are not just supportive of viewership either. The opening game between New York and Toronto saw a sell out crowd while Ottawa and Montreal’s derby saw 8,318 attendees – breaking the attendance record for a professional women’s ice hockey game. The previous record was held in the Swedish Hockey League further proving a shift in women’s sport in North America reflective of that seen more recently in Europe. It took less than a week for the record to be broken again as Minnesota saw 13,316 fans turn out to their home opener.
The League has also garnered praise for the fresh approach to women’s hockey. Officials in women’s sports have often fallen foul of sanitising the sports, limiting physicality and promoting family friendly play. In contrast, the PWHL prides itself on its physicality and players as sports stars. Body checks are allowed and officials were praised for their more laid back approach – letting the game flow rather than being quick to call.
Are there any differences in the league?
For the most part, the league primarily follows the NHL in terms of rules, opting for familiarity rather than trying to re-invent the rule. The league has introduced a number of small tweaks however with the aim of increasing excitement and competition within the league.
The first tweak is to the points system. Unlike in the NHL where overtime wins and regulation time wins are both awarded 2 points, the PWHL rewards teams for winning in regulation time. 3 points are awarded for a regular time win, 2 for an overtime win, 1 for an overtime loss and 0 for a regulation loss. In theory the additional point should make it easier for teams to turn the season around while chasing with a 3 point swing up for grabs rather than teams being able to push for overtime to ensure a ‘loser point’.
Maybe the most interesting change made relates to goals scored while short-handed. If a team scores while their own player is serving a minor penalty, the power-play ends and the player can rejoin the game without scoring the full penalty. Toronto were the first team to take advantage of this rule. After coming close to scoring while short-handed on multiple occasions, the team managed to score against New York while short-handed, ending the penalty and also securing the winning goal. The rule was popular amongst viewers being dubbed a ‘jailbreak’ and a welcome addition to the rules.
The final change revolves around shoot-outs. In the PWHL, a shoot-out is a best-of-five rather than the NHL’s best-of-three. Like the NHL, if a winner cannot be decided by the initial shootout, the teams proceed to sudden-death until a winner is decided. In the PWHL however, there is no level of restrictions to the player taking the shot in the shoot-out. A player is eligible to shoot as many or as few times as they want within the shootout. The rule means that a team with a shootout specialist could opt for all shots to be taken by them or rotate between a more select few players rather than the full squad.
What’s next?
The league continues with 72 games scheduled for the season – see the PWHL website for the full schedule.
