While an official announcement has not been made, it appears the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) accidentally confirmed Vancouver (and Seattle) are getting teams.
For a portion of Monday, April 21, the PWHL's store (in the "Shop" section of the PWHL website) contained a banner about the yet-to-be-announced Vancouver team.
"PWHL expands to Vancouver. Join the excitement and grab your new team gear!" stated the website.
A link to "Shop Vancouver," however, led nowhere. A smiliar banner was visible for Seattle as well.
By early afternoon Vancouver time, the banners were no longer live on the shop site.
Vancouver media alerted to 'historic' local sports announcement
Last week, media in Vancouver were invited to a "historic" sporting announcement. Following the announcement of the announcement, the Associated Press spoke with someone with knowledge of the announcement, who said it would be about a new .
The PWHL was founded in 2023 with six teams: Montreal, Toronto, Minnesota, New York, Ottawa, and Boston. It quickly gained traction with record-setting crowds for professional women's hockey games.
The early success was followed by a "Takeover Tour" to cities without PWHL teams, including Vancouver at Rogers Arena. The game, on Jan. 8, 2025, sold out the arena with more than 19,000 fans in attendance for the game between Toronto and Montreal. It was the fourth-largest crowd in PWHL history.
Vancouver has a long history of women's hockey; the was played here between the Vancouver Amazons and a team from Seattle in 1921.
More recently, the Vancouver Griffins were part of the National Women's Hockey League in the early 2000s.
Professional women's sports are quickly growing in Vancouver, as the Northern Super League launched earlier this month. The professional women's soccer league is the first of its type in Canada. The first game was played in Vancouver as the Rise beat the Calgary Wild 1-0.
