
The PWHL will expand to Detroit for the 2026-27 season, marking the league's ninth franchise. The team will play at Little Caesars Arena and will be known as PWHL Detroit.
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The PWHL is expanding to Detroit for the 2026-27 season, the league announced on Wednesday. Detroit is the first of what could be up to four new teams the league is introducing via expansion.
The team, which was unveiled as PWHL Detroit, will play at Little Caesars Arena, home of the NHLâs Detroit Red Wings and NBAâs Detroit Pistons, and train at the BELFOR Training Center, which is inside LCA.
PWHL Detroit is the leagueâs ninth franchise, joining the original six markets in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minnesota and the leagueâs first expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver.
âThis oneâs been a while in the making,â the PWHLâs executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told The Athletic. âI think we all felt we could have come here last year, and so (weâre) excited that this time is really here.â
According to the leagueâs news release, Detroitâs bid was led by Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Red Wings and MLBâs Detroit Tigers. In a statement, Ryan Gustafson, the president and CEO of Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, said, âWeâre excited to welcome the PWHL to Little Caesars Arena and thankful for the partnership with the league to bring a team to Hockeytown. The energy Detroit fans have brought to Takeover Tour games over the past few years has been undeniable â itâs clear this is a market ready to embrace professional womenâs hockey.â
The PWHL has hosted four neutral-site games at Little Caesars Arena, drawing 53,586 fans over the last three years. The last game, on March 28, was the most well-attended (15,938) in Detroit and came on a day when the Red Wings played a few hours later, showcasing that double-headers could be an effective workaround to the arenaâs busy schedule. That game, between the Montreal Victoire and New York Sirens, was also the first to air on national television in the United States, which was broadcast on ION.
The PWHL team in Detroit will start playing in the 2026-27 season.
The PWHL Detroit team will play their home games at Little Caesars Arena.
The expansion to Detroit represents the league's growth, adding a ninth franchise and potentially more teams in the future.
The bid for the PWHL team in Detroit was led by Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, which also owns the Red Wings and Tigers.
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âWe feel very confident in how we can do here from a business perspective,â said Scheer, who credited Ilitch Sports as excellent partners for the league. âWhether itâs a standalone date, whether itâs a doubleheader with the Red Wings, we feel we will be very successful here in Detroit.â
Like last year, there was a long list of criteria the PWHL examined when deciding where to expand this season, including market size, fan support, infrastructure and what kind of economic opportunity exists in the market, among other factors.
âThereâs a lot of reasons that (Detroit) makes a lot of sense,â said Jayna Hefford, the leagueâs executive vice president of hockey operations.
With access to Little Caesars Arena, the league will be in a âbest-in-classâ facility. The team will have dedicated locker rooms and âeverything that is required in our league,â said Hefford.
âWeâre really excited about what the experience will be like for our players to be, day-in day-out, in such an incredible building that knows what success looks like at the highest level,â she said.
Geographically, it makes sense for the league to add another team in the American Midwest, alongside Minnesota, the lone Midwest franchise for the PWHLâs first three seasons. Minnesota is still hundreds of miles from Detroit, but it at least offers the Frost a rare quick flight for an away game.
Detroit also offers a strong girls hockey ecosystem with programs such as Little Caesars and Honey Baked already represented in the league by Boston Fleet captain Megan Keller and top prospect Kirsten Simms.
âWe are honored to bring the PWHL to a sports community where women and girls have already put hockey on the map, and advance that incredible culture by offering young athletes a professional league they can strive for,â Hefford said in the leagueâs news release.
As part of the teamâs announcement, the league revealed PWHL Detroitâs primary colors, black and silver, which will be complemented by white with a red accent â a nod to the Red Wingsâ red and white winged wheel logo. Team jerseys will feature an Ally Financial patch on the chest, as the Detroit-based company will be the teamâs inaugural partner. The teamâs permanent name and logo will be announced at a later date.
The PWHL unveiled the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrentâs branding before the start of the 2025-26 season. However, due to manufacturing deadlines, each expansion team played its first season in a more generic jersey with the city name stitched diagonally across the front of the sweater, paying homage to the designs worn by the leagueâs original six teams in 2024.
The league also announced that Detroit will host the 2026 PWHL Awards (June 16) and the entry draft (June 17) at the Fox Theatre, âin celebration of the PWHLâs newest market.â
âItâs going to be fun to bring another league event to this market,â said Hefford. âTheyâve had four takeover games and now to be able to host a draft, I think itâs a great way to build momentum for this team as they continue to build and get ready to start play next season.â
On Sunday, the PWHL Players Association sent its members a guide to the expansion roster-building process that included multiple signing windows and no traditional expansion draft. In an email obtained by The Athletic, PWHLPA executive director Malaika Underwood told players, âWe have been told the league intends to move forward with a four-team expansion.â
In a statement on Sunday, the league said ânothing is finalized at this time.â When asked about the email, Scheer said, âIt could be two, it could be three, and it could be fourâ teams.
The expansion process laid out by the PWHLPA document is tentatively set to begin May 28 â just over three weeks away from Wednesdayâs announcement.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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