After months and months of anticipation, the PWHL has confirmed its expansion into the Vancouver and Seattle markets with expansion teams currently dubbed as PWHL Vancouver and PWHL Seattle respectively. There has been much speculation about other markets that made sense for the PWHL in its infancy for new markets, such as Quebec City, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, but the league has opted for a Pacific coast expansion.

               On the positive side, with confirmations that Vancouver and Seattle will be playing in the Pacific Coliseum and Climate Pledge Arena respectively, we know that both teams will have great potential for high ticket sales; however, if the inaugural-six are to be of any indication of ticket sales, Vancouver has a much greater chance of bringing in large amounts of gate revenue as the mean attendance of Canadian teams in 2024-2025 dwarfs their American counter parts by a rate of 7.8k to 4.5k.

               Ultimately, the vast appeal of the Vancouver expansion is that the Vancouver metro area is the third largest in Canada with a population of about 2.6 million people (potential customers) and based on the torrid success of the Toronto Sceptres and Montréal Victoire, there is little indication that Vancouver could fail. Overall, the Vancouver selection is another home run by the PWHL in Canada and will become another successful market for the PWHL; however, its only drawback is that it has significant travel implications for the rest of the league, and an effort to mitigate those issues came in the form of giving it a geographical backpack city in Seattle.

               At first, I didn’t know where to start with Seattle, but I decided to start with why I like it as the PWHL’s 8^th city. Unique to Seattle, relative to the rest of their United States-based counterparts is that they have a distinct lack of competition in their geographical space. Notably, Boston, New York, and Minnesota metro have 6+ Collegiate or Junior hockey teams in their space as direct competitors for selling tickets. For Seattle, their biggest non-NHL competition (who shares a building, so they’re not a competitor) are the Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbirds who’ve recently seen average attendances in the 6k and 4k ranges respectively. With the WHL being their biggest competitor, and the NCAA not having much of a footprint in the Seattle metro area, there is the logic that with a more affordable price point than the NHL (as the PWHL is effective with) there is a strong market of potential fans if the WHL is able to have similar attendance to the Boston Fleet.

               On the downside, there are certainly concerns in the Seattle market that can’t be overlooked. Most notably, broadcasting and cable viewership has been a massive pain point for the Seattle Kraken since entering the market. On paper, the Greater Seattle area boasts a population of 4.1 million potential customers; however, they’ve had enormous struggles attracting viewership. Notably on a national level, they were involved in the least watched national broadcast this season on ESPN in a game against the Sharks, and their Winter Classic match with the Vegas Golden Knights was the least watched WC of all time. The biggest question that needs to be answered is going to be about local broadcasting. It is well documented that ROOT sports were disastrous for the Kraken in the Seattle area when the team first entered the league which forced the team into launching their own KHN (Kraken Hockey Network) while the WHL made the move to Victory+ (like the Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks) for their streaming and broadcasting. The concern here being that there isn’t a lucrative TV deal to be found with great viewership in this market like MSG and NESN brings with the Sirens and the Fleet, and the Seattle market may end up existing to inflate the value of national TV viewership; however, that has not been the case for the NHL and certainly brings some concern. Luckily, the PWHL has been incredibly creative in its first two seasons to bring eyes to the product, so it will be optimistic that they will find a way to make Seattle successful.

               In conclusion, there will always be the specters of Chicago and Detroit looming over the league during the 2025-2026 season as they are proven markets, as the Chicago metro area’s population is double the size of Seattle with a struggling NHL team that made them look like a perfect market for entry at this time; however, without knowing the details of what that would have looked like, I will trust Jayna Hefford and company’s venture into Vancouver and Seattle due to the league’s success through their first two seasons. As an Anaheim Ducks fan in the Boston market, I can tell you that those who aren’t prepared for the 10pm ET start times will have some challenges supporting the teams in the inaugural season, but you will get used to going to bed at 1AM ET, and eventually you’ll learn to relish the 3AM ET bedtimes during the playoffs.