![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766016248_859_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKids banged on the glass and cheered every drill and shot the pros made inside Scotiabank Centre, hoping to catch a player\u2019s eye and maybe even a puck.<\/p>\n
The Toronto Sceptres and Montr\u00e9al Victoire opened their practices to the community in Halifax on Tuesday, to the delight of kids who got to skip school to watch their favourite players. One waved a sign saying they\u2019d missed their school\u2019s Christmas concert for the opportunity. <\/p>\n
A couple hours later, Victoire players coached youth players in a clinic on the Scotiabank Centre ice, where the Victoire and Sceptres will play game one of the league\u2019s 16-stop Takeover Tour on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of Halifax\u2019s quest to be the next city to secure a PWHL franchise, as the league eyes rapid expansion.<\/p>\n
Twelve is the magic number the eight-team league is looking to reach, and it could happen as soon as next season. The PWHL has teams in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Boston, Minnesota, Seattle and the New York area.<\/p>\n
The Takeover Tour, which sees the league visit cities across North America to showcase PWHL play, is the \u201cstarting point\u201d for considering a city for expansion, the league\u2019s executive vice president of business operations, Amy Scheer, told a crowd of community and business leaders inside the Halifax Convention Centre on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Professional women’s hockey comes to Nova Scotia:<\/p>\n
Professional women’s hockey comes to Nova Scotia<\/p>\n
The PWHL is taking over Halifax with several events planned in the next few days. It all culminates with a game at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night. The CBC’s Josh Hoffman has the story.<\/p>\n
Next is infrastructure, including the arena where players will compete and the facilities where they will train.<\/p>\n
But there are plenty of other factors on the table, too, including travel, business opportunities and community engagement.<\/p>\n
If the Takeover Tour is the starting point, Halifax has struck the right tone so far. Both Wednesday\u2019s game and another Halifax game on Jan. 11 between the Boston Fleet and Ottawa Charge sold out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually had to hold tickets back from the presale to have tickets on sale for the public the next day,\u201d Scheer told the crowd in Halifax.<\/p>\n
Signs of the league’s arrival were visible throughout downtown, including players’ faces on lampposts on streets around the rink.<\/p>\n
That tickets sold quickly didn’t surprise Jayna Hefford, the league\u2019s executive vice president of hockey operations. She won gold with Team Canada in Halifax when it hosted the 2004 world championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a market that we had circled on the calendar as something that would be a huge success,\u201d Hefford said.<\/p>\n
‘They’re looking for a market that will show up’<\/p>\n
Events East, the company that operates Scotiabank Centre, has been planning these games for months. In addition to open practices and a Halifax clinic, the group also organized a coaches\u2019 panel and a pop-up clinic in Pictou County, where Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull grew up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we know that they\u2019re looking for a market that will show up, and a fan base and a community that will welcome them,\u201d Suzanne Fougere, Events East\u2019s executive vice president, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
“Our job is to make sure that [Wednesday night] we put on a great hockey game, we show them how proud this community is, and then ultimately the decision on where they\u2019ll go in the future is really up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766016249_308_default.jpg\")
Fans got to watch the Toronto Sceptres and Montr\u00e9al Victoire train during open practices at Scotiabank Centre on Tuesday. (CBC)<\/p>\n
With a capacity around 10,500 for hockey, Scotiabank Centre is around the size the PWHL is looking for in a home arena. It\u2019s also home to the QMJHL\u2019s Halifax Mooseheads and the National Lacrosse League\u2019s Halifax Thunderbirds.<\/p>\n
Creating a practice facility could also be a possibility, should Halifax be in consideration for a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if we\u2019re pursuing a team more fully and those conversations are progressing, absolutely, that takes the right kind of infrastructure,\u201d Fougere said. \u201cFor us, that\u2019s Scotiabank Centre as the home arena and then absolutely looking at opportunities for practice venues. We know that there\u2019s support for that from our various levels of government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travel could be trickier, without direct flights to some of the PWHL\u2019s markets. The league will get a sense of how that works later this week, when the Victoire head from Halifax straight to Vancouver, where they\u2019ll play against the Goldeneyes on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The tour continues in Chicago on Sunday, with a game between the Ottawa Charge and Minnesota Frost.<\/p>\n
The PWHL will visit 11 different locations on this season’s Takeover Tour, and Halifax is one of five cities that will host more than one game. Chicago, Detroit, Edmonton and Denver will also get two visits.<\/p>\n
Coming home<\/p>\n
Beyond the audition to someday host a PWHL team, the first stop of the tour is a homecoming for a number of players and staff on the Victoire and Sceptres.<\/p>\n
Victoire head coach Kori Cheverie grew up in New Glasgow, and was excited to show her world to her friends and family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WATCH | Hockey North: Projecting the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey roster:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766016249_596_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Projecting Team Canada’s women’s hockey roster for Milano Cortina 2026<\/p>\n
Host Karissa Donkin and The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian give their predictions for what Canada’s women’s hockey roster could look like at the upcoming Olympic Winter Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family\u2019s super proud and they love our team, and they want to be involved and they want our team to feel extremely welcome,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On the other bench, Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan, who\u2019s from Spryfield, N.S., played his first university hockey game for the University of New Brunswick inside what is now Scotiabank Centre. Before that, he watched AHL teams play there.<\/p>\n
As his team flew in on Monday, and was welcomed by fans at the airport, it felt like coming home for Ryan, who mentioned how strange it felt to be staying in a hotel in his hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of a better place to have a PWHL team than Halifax,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cI know there\u2019s support. The growth of women and girls hockey through Hockey Nova Scotia is a leader around the country. It would be a great location.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sceptres defender Allie Munroe was one of only about four girls playing hockey when she was growing up in Yarmouth, N.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She couldn\u2019t have dreamed of playing a pro hockey game in her home province.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still surreal to me,\u201d Munroe said. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream to come true to play professional hockey for a living. Just to be at home, to have all the support, I feel it in Toronto. All throughout my career, I\u2019ve had amazing support from the province, especially my hometown of Yarmouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766016249_538_default.jpg\")
A PWHL Takeover Tour game in Halifax is a homecoming for Toronto Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull, who is from Stellarton, N.S. (Sammy Kogan\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n
The story is similar for Turnbull, who didn\u2019t have the option to play with girls when she grew up in Stellarton, N.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, the summer camp she runs alongside fellow Nova Scotian Jill Saulnier sells out within minutes. Last summer, they coached about 300 girls.<\/p>\n
It will be Turnbull\u2019s second game in Halifax in a calendar year, after the Canadian national team played a Rivalry Series game against the United States at Scotiabank Arena last winter. Turnbull scored a big goal in front of her home crowd to tie that game.<\/p>\n
Authoring another big moment at home, for the PWHL team she leads, would be something else entirely. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think [Wednesday] we can expect a ton of kids in the stands, a lot of little girls who know a lot about the PWHL,\u201d Turnbull said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got teams that they follow, players that they follow. For Montreal and Toronto to be the first two teams to play against each other here in Halifax, I think it\u2019s something that you can\u2019t really put into words. It\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kids banged on the glass and cheered every drill and shot the pros made inside Scotiabank Centre, hoping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-352151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}