The Professional Women’s Hockey League has chosen Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, its next expansion cities, according to media reports Tuesday.
In Las Vegas, an official announcement is expected on Wednesday, per The Athletic.
Hockey News reported the Hamilton club will be officially announced Thursday.
The PWHL is expansion-minded.
The league began in January 2024 with teams in Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, Ottawa and Toronto. Seattle and Vancouver joined the PWHL for the current season.
Last week, the league announced a Detroit club will be added for the 2026-27 season, with as many as three more teams to join. With Las Vegas and Hamilton reportedly in, that leaves San Jose, Calif., as the next potential landing spot, per The Athletic.
Las Vegas has become a hot pro sports market. It had no pro teams until the NHL granted the city an expansion team — the Vegas Golden Knights — to begin play in 2017. The Aces of the WNBA moved to Las Vegas from San Antonio in 2018, with the NFL’s Raiders leaving Oakland for a new Las Vegas stadium in 2020.
A stadium is under construction in Las Vegas for MLB’s Athletics, who shared an out-of-date facility in Oakland with the Raiders. The A’s are expected to relocate from their temporary home in West Sacramento, Calif., in 2028, and the NBA also is considering Las Vegas as a future expansion city.
In January, Hamilton drew 16,012 fans for a PWHL game at TD Coliseum between Toronto and Seattle.
–Field Level Media
