On New Year’s Day, while many were watching the NHL’s Winter Classic between the Seattle Kraken and the Vegas Golden Knights in Seattle, there was another monumental game going on in Toronto between New York and Toronto of the Profesional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).
This game was a long time coming and had several celebrity and NHL viewers. Players like Sydney Brodt, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Maddie Rooney, GiGi Marvin, Hillary Knight, Marie-Philip Poulin, and many other big names will now call this league home. In this article, we’ll take a look at the league, the rules, the first game, and its schedule. We’ll start with some background about the league itself.
Professional Women’s Hockey League
While there have been several women’s hockey leagues over the years, they’ve all since folded. The PWHL is now the only professional women’s hockey league and has replaced all the former leagues.
There are currently six teams, three in Canada and three in the United States. The three in Canada are Montréal, Ottawa, and Toronto, while the three in the United States are Boston, Minnesota, and New York. For the first season, the teams will not have names; rather, they’ll go by their location for now.
Each team has 23 players, and to fill those spots, they had a free agency period before their draft that took place in September 2023. The teams were allowed to sign a maximum of three players during free agency, and then a 15-round draft commenced. Minnesota was awarded the first pick in the draft, and they selected forward Taylor Heise.
PWHL Rules
Most hockey leagues have similar rules, and while the PWHL follows the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and the NHL, they’ve come up with a few rules of their own that set them apart. These rules will make the game more appealing for fans interested in something new and bring in new fans as well.
The first rule applies to when a team is shorthanded. If the shorthanded team scores a goal, the penalty is over, something that doesn’t happen in the NHL or IIHF. “The entire PWHL has embraced the opportunity to be innovative with how our game is played,” said the senior vice president of hockey operations, Jayna Hefford.
They have a nearly 200-page rulebook clarifying how equipment should be, penalty calls, etc. However, one area that is quite similar to the NHL is their overtime format. They’ve kept the five-minute three-on-three overtime, with the first goal being the winner.
Related: Marie-Philip Poulin is Keeping the Spotlight on Women’s Hockey
If overtime doesn’t solve things, it goes to a shootout, except unlike the NHL, which has three shooters a piece before going “sudden death,” the PWHL will go with five shooters. Also, their players can shoot at any time, as many times as the team chooses; it doesn’t have to change players per shot.
Now everyone is truly wondering, how does the point system work? Well, it does differ from other leagues, with a regulation win earning a team three points and two points for an overtime or shootout win. A team can get one point for an overtime or shootout loss and zero points for a regulation loss.
PWHL’S First Game: Toronto vs New York
Many big games are played on holidays, and the PWHL wanted to come in with a bang, so they had their first game on New Year’s Day. They also chose probably the biggest hockey hotbed to host the first game, Toronto. On Instagram, there were lots of “best wishes” and “we’re watching” across the platform from different celebrities and players, such as a number of Toronto Maple Leafs players wearing PWHL sweatshirts that included Auston Matthews.
Carey Price and his family also posted on their own Instagram that they were having a watch party with PWHL sweatshirts. Hockey equipment manufacturer Bauer even took to social media to post about how historic of a day it was to have a professional women’s hockey league. Speaking of celebrities, none other than Billie Jean King is on the board along with Ilana Kloss, Royce Cohen, and Stan Kasten, and they will govern the PWHL. These aren’t the only famous names, either. New York has Madison Packer and Alex Carpenter in their lineup, and Toronto has Sarah Nurse and Blayre Turnbull in theirs, just to name a few.
Now we’ll talk about the game; it was fast end-to-end action that actually was a bit more physical than I expected, which added to the excitement. The game was a tight one-goal affair until partway through the third period when New York opened things up and won the game 4-0. The score doesn’t do the game justice, however, as it was much closer than that and will likely be the story for a lot of the games.
PWHL’s Upcoming Schedule
The PWHL has a 72-game schedule, with games nearly every day of the week and some with multiple games a night. It will be more like an NHL schedule but slightly scaled back due to the number of teams. It started in January, and the plan is for it to end sometime in June with the playoffs.
It’s so exciting to see a women’s hockey league take off like this; I grew up playing hockey, and now seeing that it’s possible for little girls to play in a professional league of their own someday is monumental, and I wish for them to have all the success for the future.
