PWHL announces expansion to Hamilton and Las Vegas next season

Hamilton is the latest Canadian city to welcome a PWHL team, the women’s hockey league announced on Wednesday.

In addition to the expansion franchise in Hamilton, the PWHL said Las Vegas will also be joining the league for the 2026-27 season.

Hamilton’s team will play out of the TD Coliseum, which can seat up to 19,000 fans.

“This is an exciting moment for Hamiltonians,” the city’s mayor, Andrea Horwath, said in a news release. “Bringing a PWHL team to Hamilton will inspire young women and girls, bring new energy to our downtown, and create incredible experiences for fans and families across our community.”

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The team’s name and mascot have not yet been shared, but its colours will be gold, maroon and cream, according to the release. These colours are a nod to some other Hamilton teams, including the CFL’s Tiger-Cats and the long-defunct Hamilton Tigers of the NHL.

“Hamilton and its surrounding communities have long been central to the growth of girls’ and women’s hockey, producing generations of talented players and passionate fans,” Jayna Hefford, the PWHL executive vice-president of hockey operations, said in the release.

“This is a region with deep hockey roots, and the response we saw during our Takeover Tour game at TD Coliseum made it clear that fans in the region are ready to rally around a team of their own.”

The PWHL says more than 15 per cent of its players hail from the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This region of Ontario includes Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Catharines-Niagara and London.

When the league stopped in the city for a recreational game in January, it said tens of thousands of fans attended, and more than 70 per cent said it was their first time watching a PWHL game in person.

As for Las Vegas, the league described the city as a hub for entertainment and said it has welcomed hockey in recent years with its NHL team, the Golden Knights, joining the men’s hockey league in 2017.

Tickets for next season are not yet on sale. The 2025-26 season wraps up with two Canadian teams — the Montreal Victoire and Ottawa Charge — battling it out in the final.