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Takeover Tour games are the testing ground for the league’s future expansion.
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Published Mar 26, 2026 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 5 minute read
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PWHL captains Blayre Turnbull of the Toronto Sceptres (left) and Brianne Jenner of the Ottawa Charge will lead their teams into a PWHL Takeover Tour game in Calgary on April 1, 2026. Photo by PWHL /The Canadian PressArticle content
Calgary’s long wait is over. The PWHL and women’s hockey is finally coming back to town.
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A staple in women’s hockey before the PWHL even came into existence and the long-time home of Canada’s national women’s team, this visit is long overdue, but Calgarians should have no problem getting comfortable with it rather quickly.
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Many of the women who make the PWHL what it is today got their real starts in Calgary, and a number of them will be in uniform on Wednesday when the Toronto Sceptres take on the Ottawa Charge at the Scotiabank Saddledome (7:30 p.m. MT puck drop).
Edmonton will have hosted three PWHL regular-season games by the time the season ends, so it’s only proper that Calgary gets in on the action.
The team captains of the two respective teams participating in this one have long histories in Calgary.
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Blayre Turnbull, the Stellerton, N.S., native who has worn the C in Toronto since the league began three seasons ago, spent more than eight years in Calgary, coming to join the CWHL’s Inferno upon graduating from the NCAA.
Brianne Jenner, like Turnbull, has been the captain of the Ottawa Charge since Year 1 and played on that same Inferno team as Turnbull. Both were big reasons the Inferno were so successful in their time in Calgary, winning two Clarkson Cups.
Also on that team was Jenner’s teammate in Ottawa, forward Rebecca Leslie, who is tied for the league lead in goals with 12 and is tied with Jenner at 19 points for the Ottawa lead.
But that’s just the beginning of the ties to Calgary that will make their return next week.
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Ottawa head coach Carla MacLeod was born in Edmonton but grew up in Calgary, while Sceptres GM Gina Kingsbury calls Calgary home today.
Jess Kondas, a Sceptres defender, grew up in Calgary and spends her off-seasons there working at a local gym. Ottawa forward Sarah Wozniewicz is a native of nearby Cochrane, Alta., and has the unique claim of having been coached by both MacLeod (first in Calgary and now in Ottawa) as well as Turnbull, when the latter took on a team while playing for the Inferno.
Wozniewicz remembers wanting to be just like Turnbull, who would bring the entire team to Inferno games and expose the girls to what was then the closest thing to professional women’s hockey in North America.
“I always looked up to Blayre when she coached my team,” Wozniewicz said. “I think that was the first dose of professional women’s hockey I ever experienced (watching the Inferno). I always wanted to be her. I remember she let me use her stick when I was still in high school, so that was pretty cool.”
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Turnbull says Calgary was the perfect learning ground for her future in the PWHL, even if the league at that time was well short of the professional standards the one she now plays in offers, where hockey is her full-time job. Back in her Calgary days, the women playing in the CWHL were juggling 9-to-5 jobs with their hockey.
“When I think back to my years on the inferno and playing in Calgary, I think that’s where I learned to be a professional athlete,” Turnbull said. “I was fortunate enough to move in with Jenner and her wife Haley as soon as I graduated from college and I learned so much from them and the all the other girls we played with and practised with.”
Jenner said the immensely talented roster those Inferno teams had helped her become the internationally decorated player she would become.
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“I credit a lot of my development to those first years out of college playing for that team,” she said. “We were really lucky to have really good hockey players on that team that made us better in practice and created kind of the best training environment.”
WHAT’S AT STAKE FOR THE CITY?
It’s no secret the PWHL is actively expanding, adding teams in Seattle and Vancouver last season to the original six squads. The league will expand again this summer by as many as four, but more likely two more teams.
The 16 neutral-site Takeover Tour games are the testing ground for the league’s future expansion.
With Calgary new to the schedule, it’s unlikely that Calgary would gain a PWHL expansion team this summer, but that certainly doesn’t mean the city can’t acquire one down the road.
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Attendance at these events is one part of the puzzle, but just one. The league also looks at arena infrastructure, local youth hockey systems, economic opportunity, and travel logistics.
Calgary would appear to tick all those boxes. Suffice to say, the league is thinking well beyond the 10 or 12 teams that make up the league next season.
OTHER EVENTS BEFORE THE GAME
The festivities begin Monday with a community skills clinic for local U9-U11 and U13-U15 players at Father David Bauer Arena. Among those from the PWHL taking part in these clinics are Kondas, Sceptres defender and PWHL defender of the year Renata Fast, and their Sceptres teammates, Swedish national team standouts Sara Hjalmarsson and Anna Kjellbin.
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On Tuesday, a day before the game, the teams will host open practices at WinSport,. with the Charge taking the ice at 11 a.m in Arena C while the Sceptres will get going at 12:30 in Arena B.
That night, a coaches panel featuring Toronto GM Gina Kingsbury and assistant coach Rachel Flanagan, along with Charge head coach coach Carla MacLeod and goalie coach Pierre Groulx, will be held at the WinSport Hall of Champions. The panel goes from 6 to 7 p.m., with former national team standout Cassie Campbell-Pascall hosting.
THREE POINTS ON THE LINE
The Charge and Sceptres, along with the New York Sirens, are separated by just four points with eight games remaining entering play Friday. This will be the first of three games in those final eight between Ottawa and Toronto. The Sceptres also have two more games remaining against the Sirens. All three teams are trying to secure the fourth and final playoff spot, with third place likely too far out of reach for any of them.
Toronto has a one-point edge over Ottawa, with New York four points back. With a regulation win worth three points, this is still anyone’s spot to win.
mganter@postmedia.com
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