What I’m hearing about PWHL expansion: Why San Jose is a strong candidate to land a team

What I’m hearing about PWHL expansion: Why San Jose is a strong candidate to land a team

On Wednesday morning, the PWHL officially announced it is heading to Detroit for the 2026-27 season. It won’t be the only big expansion announcement in the coming weeks.

In an email obtained by The Athletic, PWHLPA executive director Malaika Underwood told players “the league intends to move forward with a four-team expansion.” When asked about the email, Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s executive vice president of business operations, said the league could add two, three or four teams.

Selecting expansion markets has been a fluid process for league executives, who have spent months working through the available options. “The answers will come when we feel comfortable making a final decision,” Scheer told The Athletic last month.

There’s been no shortage of online discussion over where the league might eventually land. And over the last few weeks, there’s been increased chatter among league circles that San Jose has emerged as a prime option.

Expansion to San Jose might feel out of left field — especially as fans in established NHL cities such as Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh have long clamored for a team — but that doesn’t mean it’s not an intriguing fit.

The Bay Area has become a premier hub for women’s sports with the additions of NWSL and WNBA franchises in recent years. Bay FC broke the NWSL attendance record last season with over 40,000 fans at Oracle Park (a record since broken by the league’s newest team, Denver Summit FC).

In the WNBA, the Golden State Valkyries topped the league average attendance table last season with over 18,000 fans per game and became the first franchise valued at $1 billion, according to CNBC, just one season into their existence.

The Bay Area also topped The Athletic’s list of women’s sports cities back in November.

As The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II wrote: “The Bay doesn’t just support women’s sports, it centers them. It elevates them. It multiplies them. It invests in them by buying tickets and merch. Tens of thousands of people will drop everything to watch women hoop, swim, skate, run, pass, score. Shine.”

After adding expansion teams in Vancouver and Seattle last season, there is likely a need for the PWHL to continue adding teams on the West Coast. Especially if the PWHL splits two conferences; Scheer told the Associated Press the league is exploring the idea.

A team in San Jose would make the league more geographically balanced — with at least three teams out west, two in the Midwest and five out east — and could cut back on Seattle and Vancouver’s travel, which was an issue to some degree this season. Both expansion teams struggled in their inaugural seasons and finished bottom-two in the league standings. Vancouver head coach Brian Idalski was vocal about the challenges of travel.

“We’re both struggling,” he said after a two-week road trip that ended last month. “There’s something there. There’s something with the travel and us going back and forth that’s happening to our bodies.”

Hockey in general is on the upswing in San Jose, too, with 19-year-old superstar Macklin Celebrini driving one of the highest year-over-year attendance growth rates in the NHL this season. The San Jose Sharks averaged just over 16,000 fans at the SAP Center this season, up from around 14,000 in 2024-25.

The SAP Center is the most likely primary venue for a PWHL team in San Jose, and should be more available compared to other options in California. It’s also undergoing a $425 million renovation to modernize the rink. Crypto.com Arena is home to three professional teams (in the NHL, NBA and WNBA) and hosts tons of concerts and events. The Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, is exclusively used for basketball and concerts.

There have been Canada-USA Rivalry Series games at Tech CU Arena — where the Sharks’ minor league affiliate plays — in San Jose in the past. But women’s hockey has outgrown that arena’s 4,200-seat capacity.

If the league indeed expands to San Jose — or another appealing West Coast market — that leaves room for two more teams. Given the consistently strong attendance numbers in the league’s current Canadian markets — Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal — at least one new franchise should be North of the border.

Calgary — with a brand new building opening in 2027-28 — would be an obvious landing spot for the PWHL. But if the league is bullish on getting to 12 teams in its second round of expansion — and limiting the amount of consecutive seasons it shakes up rosters — Calgary will have just missed out.

There are other strong options, however, in Hamilton, Quebec City and Halifax.

Last month, The Athletic reported that Hamilton’s stock was on the rise; that doesn’t appear to have changed. A team in Hamilton would work well within the league’s current footprint with manageable bus trips to Detroit, Ottawa and nearby Toronto. Montreal (393 miles away from Hamilton, or a six-hour drive on a good traffic day) is right on the line of the CBA’s six-hour or 400-mile threshold for air travel.

Hamilton could draw some amount of fans from the Greater Toronto Area, but also further south into Ontario and as far as Buffalo. The Toronto Sceptres have been such a success that the team’s core fan base shouldn’t be overly impacted.

Adding a team in Hamilton would also give the league a sixth — and perhaps final, for now — eastern conference team. If that’s the PWHL’s calculus, then perhaps there’s another West Coast option.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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