PWHL (Professional Women's Hockey League)

A new league for the best players

For a long time, women's ice hockey in North America had no stable professional league. Several attempts failed for financial reasons. In 2023, the leading players, investors and partners agreed on a joint league: the PWHL. It started in January 2024 with six teams in Boston, Minnesota, Montréal, New York, Ottawa and Toronto. Teams in Seattle and Vancouver were added for the 2025/26 season.

Rules and special features

The rules largely correspond to men's ice hockey. More body contact is allowed than in international women's ice hockey, without body checks being as common as in the men's game. Some innovations stand out:

• 3-2-1-0 points system: A win in regulation brings three points, a win after overtime or shootout two, and an overtime loss one.
• Jailbreak rule: If a shorthanded team scores, the penalty of the player in the penalty box ends immediately.

Walter Cup

The champion receives the Walter Cup, named after Mark and Kimbra Walter, the couple who finance the league. The first champion, in 2024, was the team from Minnesota.

Attendance records

The PWHL has set several attendance records for women's ice hockey, including at games in large NHL arenas in Toronto and Montréal. This shows how big the interest in women's ice hockey is when games are marketed professionally.

Players from Europe

Alongside players from Canada and the USA, the rosters include Europeans, for example from the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. For players from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the PWHL is a new goal that did not exist before. In Germany, the best women play in the German women's ice hockey league (DFEL).

Season

The regular season starts in late autumn and ends in spring, followed by the playoffs for the Walter Cup. Games are broadcast on TV and streamed in North America.

Draft and contracts

As in the NHL, new players are allocated to teams via a draft. The league concluded a collective bargaining agreement with the players' union that sets minimum salaries and benefits. This sets the PWHL apart from earlier women's leagues, in which players were often barely paid.

The first champions

In the first season in 2024, Minnesota won the Walter Cup in the final against Boston. Minnesota also prevailed in the second season in 2025, this time against Ottawa, becoming the league's first repeat champion.

Record crowd

In April 2024, more than 21,000 spectators came to a PWHL game at the Bell Centre in Montréal, at the time a world record for women's ice hockey. A game in Toronto had previously set a record. These figures show how big the public interest in professional women's ice hockey is.

Significance for Europe

For players from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the PWHL is a new career goal. Switzerland's Alina Müller, who won Olympic bronze as a teenager in 2014, was among the first Europeans in the league.

Teams and names

For the second season, the teams got their own names, such as Minnesota Frost, Boston Fleet, Toronto Sceptres and Montréal Victoire. With the expansion to Seattle and Vancouver, the league is now also represented on the West Coast.