Fans are gearing up for puck drop as the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) holds two games in Halifax, and it’s igniting talk around the possibility of a team coming to the city one day.
Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre is hosting two PWHL Takeover Tour games, and Wednesday night’s match between the Montreal Victoire and Toronto Sceptres quickly sold out.
For the Toronto Sceptres’ captain, Blayre Turnbull, a Nova Scotia native, leading her team in the first professional women’s hockey league game in the province is a dream come true.
“It means a lot. It’s a really cool opportunity, one that I never dreamt that I would have,” she said.
“So it’s really special for me to be here and to be able to play in my home province in front of a lot of my family and friends.”
Turnbull says the number of young women playing hockey across the Maritimes has exploded since her early playing days. She says the PWHL is allowing female athletes to dream bigger and believes a pro team in Halifax would only add to that.
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“I think a team would be really well supported here. I know the Mooseheads do really well, and all the other pro sports teams in the area, they’re successful,” she said.
Turnbull’s coach, Troy Ryan, who clinched an Olympic gold alongside her in 2022, grew up in Halifax.
He says enthusiasm for the Takeover Tour game is a clear indicator that Atlantic Canada’s largest city is a strong market.
“I honestly can’t think of a better place to have a PWHL team than Halifax. I know the support, the growth of women and girls’ hockey through Hockey Nova Scotia is a leader around the country,” he said.
Ryan says he watched tickets vanish quickly when the event was first announced.
“We actually were in our coach’s office in Toronto, where we were watching the ticket sales. The seats just kind of disappeared online and it’s not surprising at all.”
Halifax is the first stop of the tour and will feature two games. The league will return to Halifax in January for a game between Ottawa and Boston.
Events East, which manages the Scotiabank Centre, views Halifax’s hosting duty as an encouraging sign when it comes to the appetite for a WPHL team.
“Well, I can tell you when the tickets went on sale, we knew right away that this was a popular event. There was extremely high demand,” said Events East’s executive vice-president, Suzanne Fougere.
“As the PWHL considers expansion and what they’re looking for in host partners and host cities, we’d love to be part of that consideration.”
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