The Professional Women's Hockey League is continuing its rapid expansion, announcing Wednesday that Hamilton, Ont., and Las Vegas will join the league for the 2026-27 season.
The two franchises, unveiled just days after the league confirmed expansion to Detroit, will bring the PWHL to 11 teams less than four years after its launch. Hamilton will play out of TD Coliseum, while Las Vegas will host games at T-Mobile Arena.
“We trying to build a strong foundation for a league that is going to be sustainable for years to come,” the league’s executive vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said.
The additions further widen the league’s footprint across North America, strengthening its presence in Canadian hockey hotbeds while also pushing into a new region of the United States. Las Vegas becomes the PWHL’s first franchise in the Southwest.
Hamilton had long been viewed as a leading candidate for expansion. More than 15% of PWHL players come from the Hamilton area, including Sarah Nurse and Renata Fast. Kayla Vespa, now with the New York Sirens, once worked overnight shifts driving a snowplow in the city while training for hockey.
Expansion to the city began looking more realistic after it drew more than 16,000 fans for a Takeover Tour game earlier this year. The crowd was one of the largest neutral-site attendances in league history and reinforced the appetite for women’s professional hockey in the region, even with Toronto and Ottawa already in the league; league data shows it was the first PWHL experience for more than 70% of attendees.
“It was amazing. To see so many people out for women’s hockey was a proud moment,” said Hamilton mayor Andrea Horwath. “The fact that that league is expanding the way is it is, it’s exciting for women and girls but also for sports enthusiasts. It’s really a good news story all around.”
Details on Hamilton’s team branding
Hamilton’s team colours will feature gold, maroon and cream, drawing inspiration from both the city’s steel industry and with a nod to the CFL’s Tiger-Cats. A permanent name and logo will be revealed at a later date.
The Hamilton expansion effort is in partnership with the City of Hamilton and Oak View Group, marking the second straight expansion cycle in which the league has worked with the sports and entertainment company following last season’s launch of the Seattle franchise.
Las Vegas, meanwhile, represents a different kind of opportunity for the league. Since the arrival of the NHL’s Golden Knights in 2017, hockey participation in Nevada has surged for women and girls by more than 600%. The city has simultaneously established itself as a major destination for women’s sports through the success of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces and other marquee events. In 2024, the Aces became the first WNBA team to sell out all regular season home games.
League officials also view Las Vegas as a strategic fit because of its tourism infrastructure, accessibility and established sports market. The expansion effort is being supported in partnership with the Golden Knights organization and MGM Resorts International.
The Las Vegas club will adopt green and gold as its primary colours, drawing from both the desert landscape surrounding the city and the glamour associated with the Vegas sports scene.
How will the expansion draft be handled?
The league has not yet finalized details surrounding the upcoming expansion draft and roster-building process, including how the newest teams will integrate into the 2026 draft. Those announcements are expected in the coming weeks.
“Competitive balance has always been a priority for us. I thought we were able to accomplish that last time (with the expansion draft). Through a slightly different strategy I think we will again,” Hefford said.
The challenge extends beyond roster construction. Last season’s expansion teams were still hiring staff and building infrastructure while established clubs were already holding meetings about systems and special teams. Both expansion teams ultimately finished near the bottom of the standings.
“The timing makes it tough in the sense that we have to do all of our due diligence. You have to pick the right city for the right reasons. And, by the time you do that, you need to hire staff. Making sure you have the right staff in place takes a good amount of time. Certainly, that’s not a process you want to rush,” said league executive vice president Amy Scheer at the start of the 2025-26 season. “In a perfect world we would love to have team staff in place sooner to give us more bandwidth and time as a ramp up instead of four months.
“We’d love to have six or seven months. But on the other side, it’s shown that we can do it. We’ve pulled rabbits out of our hats before and we can do it again. But if ever we have the luxury of time, that’d be one thing I’d love to change.”
The latest additions continue an aggressive stretch of growth for the PWHL, which added Seattle and Vancouver last season before announcing Detroit earlier this week.
With Hamilton and Las Vegas now confirmed, the league’s 2026-27 campaign is set to become its largest and most geographically expansive season yet.
The league is expected to announce one additional market in this round of expansion.
There is growing speculation around a possible expansion team in San Jose. Earlier this month, the Golden State Valkyries became the first women’s sports franchise valued at $1 billion after joining the WNBA in 2025, showing there is already a proven market for women’s sports in the Bay Area even without a PWHL Takeover Tour stop there.
