5 takeaways from Week 10 of the PWHL: Attendance sees post-Olympic spike
We’re back with our first set of PWHL takeaways since the Olympic break! With the league returning to action, we saw massive attendance numbers, a strong performance from one of the league’s Canadian teams, and a massive injury to one of the league’s best players.
With that being said, here are this week’s takeaways for Daily Faceoff.
PWHL attendance spikes after Olympics
The success of the women’s tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics translated in ticket sales for the PWHL, with three of last week’s five games played in front of more than 10,000 fans, along with a capacity crowd of nearly 8,600 in Ottawa’s TD Place.
The highlight of the week was the Seattle Torrent playing against the Toronto Sceptres in front of a capacity crowd of 17,335 inside Climate Pledge Arena, setting a new U.S. women’s hockey attendance record. Seattle has been a stable attendance marker for the league’s newest U.S. franchise, with six of their eight home games breaking the 10,000-fans mark.
The same goes for the league’s newest Canadian team in the Vancouver Goldeneyes, who have broken the 10,000-mark in four of their six home games, which includes nearly 13,300 on Sunday against the Sceptres.
One more point about the season as a whole: 30 of the 67 games played have seen attendance of at least 80% capacity, which equates to nearly 45% of all games. It’s hard to overstate just how impressive that is for a league that’s only in its third year. I’ve seen men’s and women’s hockey leagues struggle to put butts in seats, dating back to the now-defunct CWHL and NWHL/PHF, as well as men’s minor leagues like the AHL and now-defunct UHL and IHL, and once you’ve accepted you’re not able to sell tickets, you get desperate and gimmicky.
That hasn’t happened for the PWHL, with each of the eight team’s fanbases growing to a point where there’s the day-one, diehard loyal fans, the season ticket holders, the loyalists who bring signs to every warm up, but perhaps more importantly, the undercurrent of casual or soft fandom that goes to games, keeps up with the standings, buys tickets for birthdays and holidays, buys merchandise for nieces and nephews. That backbone of support not only keeps the lights on, but paves the way for those lights to shine brightest on the game’s stars.
Knight, Keller shine in SNL opening monologue
Seattle Torrent forward Hilary Knight and Boston Fleet defender Megan Keller, along with Jack and Quinn Hughes of the NHL, all took the stage wearing their USA Hockey uniforms and Olympic gold medals during actor Connor Storrie’s opening monologue on last weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live.
Reports from earlier in the week said Jack and Quinn Hughes, who play for the New Jersey Devils and Minnesota Wild, respectively, would make an appearance on the show following their overtime win over Canada in the men’s final. But soon after they stepped out on stage to chat with Storrie, both Knight and Keller came out.
“Megan and Hilary, it’s so cool that we’re all here!” Storrie said.
“It was going to be just us, but we thought we’d invite the guys, too,” Knight replied.
“Yeah, we thought we’d give them a little moment to shine,” added Keller, who earlier in the day recorded an assist and nearly 30 minutes of ice time in a 3-2 shootout win over the Ottawa Charge.
The timing couldn’t have worked out any better, as Storrie was named host following the success of his hit series Heated Rivalry, which follows two male hockey superstars who develop a secret relationship over the course of their professional careers.
However, controversy followed the Hughes brothers and the rest of the men’s hockey team after FBI Director Kash Patel partied with the group following their gold-medal victory, with U.S. President Donald Trump called in on FaceTime to invite them to the White House and to attend the State of the Union. He followed that by adding that the women’s team would be invited, as well.
“I must tell you,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that? … I do believe I probably would be impeached.”
The women’s team declined Trump’s invitation due to the timing of the visit.
Victoire takes over top spot
The Montreal Victoire wasted no time coming out of the Olympic break with two regulation wins last week, starting with a 4-1 victory over the New York Sirens. All four goals were scored by depth players like Dara Greig, Jade Downie-Landry, Skylar Irving, and Lina Ljungblom, three of them having scored their first of the season. The win was highlighted with the absence of Marie-Philip Poulin, who missed two games during the Olympics with a lower-body injury and was not 100% during the gold-medal game.
However, Poulin returned Sunday for their game against the Minnesota Frost, which saw Laura Stacey score a goal and fire a game-high eight shots on net in a 4-0 win. The pair of regulation wins catapulted the Victoire into the No. 1 spot in the league, albeit one point ahead of the Fleet who have two games in hand.
Still, for Montreal to shut out a Frost squad that has six gold medalists is a testament to how determined they are to shake off last year’s first-round upset and let the rest of the league know they’re all business in the second half of the season, and beyond.
Leading scorer put on LTIR
Before their 4-0 loss to the Victoire, the Frost received bad news with Kendall Coyne Scofield suffering an upper-body injury during the gold-medal game in Milan, forcing Minnesota to place her on long-term injured reserve. The 33-year-old forward went into the Olympic break with 10 goals and six assists for a league-leading 16 points, well on pace to eclipse the 12-12-24 stat line she recorded last season.
While the Frost still has plenty of elite players and will likely be fine in the long run, losing a player as talented as Coyne Schofield will hurt Minnesota in the short term.
Ryan hints at change for Hockey Canada
Sceptres’ head coach Troy Ryan, who coached Canada’s women’s team to a silver medal in Milan, said at a press conference last week that he’s had conversations with Hockey Canada about his future with the program, hinting that his time as head coach of the women’s team may soon be coming to an end.
“I’ve had those conversations consistently over the last few years with Hockey Canada on when the right time to transition into either a different role, or just completely transition out of the program,” he said. “The finer details within those decisions still need to be worked out. Succession Planning is always important, I believe, in national team programs, and I can only speak for my part in it, but I would definitely encourage some succession planning.”
Ryan led Canada to a gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Olympics and multiple World Championships, but has lost nine consecutive games to the U.S. program, including twice at Milan 2026. While Ryan has no doubt found success with this group, the program has taken a step back, or at least been stalled in its progress, with an overreliance on veteran skaters, and the American program greatly improved in recent years.
With 13 of the gold-medal-winning U.S. players born in the 2000s and eight of them still in the NCAA, it’s clear the future of women’s hockey may run through the red, white, and blue. If that’s the case, a fresh perspective and a full reset may be what the doctor ordered for Hockey Canada.
Read more women’s hockey stories at DFO
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