PWHL Coming to Detroit Will Have Wide-Spread Impact

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) announced today (May 6) that the league will be welcoming its ninth team, with the city of Detroit being awarded an expansion team, beginning play in the 2026-27 season. Along with Detroit now having its own team, the city will also be hosting the 2026 PWHL Awards (June 16) and the 2026 PWHL Entry Draft (June 17). While the impact of having a team will certainly be felt in the city itself, the impact will almost surely be felt on a higher level as well.

PWHL’s History in Detroit

As part of the PWHL Takeover games since the inaugural season (2023-24), Detroit hosted four games, and had over 53,000 fans in total at the four games, led by the almost 16,000 (15,938) on March 28 of this year. The love for the league was evident as soon as you walked up to the entrances of Little Caesars Arena, with lines and lines of fans waiting to get in to watch. Once inside the rink and at your seat, looking around and seeing the number of fans of all ages, whether it be young girls who play the sport, or lifelong hockey fans, filling the seats, it was clear that the city of Detroit was more than ready to have its own team to support.

Impact to Be Wide Spread

While obviously the city of Detroit will feel the impact of the new PWHL team being in town, and with Little Caesars Arena going to be welcoming a fourth organization as their home arena in 2029 when the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) plans on bringing back an organization, the impact should be felt on a larger scale, state-wide as well.

The state of Michigan has the fourth-most registered female youth hockey players of any state in the United States (just over 5,000 registered through the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association), and as mentioned before, they showed up and supported the PWHL Takeover games with great passion over the past few seasons. With the state having its own organization to root for, attendance will be high, but it will also help grow the game at the youth level even more. Whether it is an AA travel team or the growth of even the AAA level of girls hockey, the addition of a PWHL organization could end up being a factor in that.

With players like Megan Keller (Boston Fleet) and Abby Roque (Montreal Victoire), among others, having Michigan ties, along with a handful of prospects in the 2026 Entry Draft (Kirsten Simms, Elyssa Biederman, and Casey Borgiel), there will be plenty of girls in the state who will certainly want to follow in their footsteps.

The impact could end up being felt at the collegiate level as well. With the amount of girls hockey in Michigan, there are currently no NCAA Division I programs. There has long been a push for some of the bigger colleges, like the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, to add a program. Adrian College has been one of the country’s top Division 3 teams in the women’s game, and there are plenty of colleges with club teams as well, but the expansion at both the Division 3 and Division I levels is still a work in progress.

With the addition of the PWHL team in Detroit, it could help get the ball rolling even more on colleges adding their own Division I or Division 3 program to help keep the high-end talent in-state, while continuing to grow the game as well.

League Expansion in Detroit is Just the Start

While the addition of Detroit to the league marks the ninth team in the PWHL, there is a chance that the league expands even more this offseason, with the potential for three more expansion teams being announced at some point as well. With the 2026 Playoffs being in full swing, the excitement surrounding the league should only continue to grow as more organizations are announced, and the game itself continues to grow in North America.