Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by NHL Network and ESPN hockey analyst Madison Packer to discuss the expansion of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL). Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
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Video Transcript
The PWHL just announced Las Vegas is one of four new cities getting expansion.
What does expansion mean for the PWHL?
Yeah, so they added four teams this off-season, one being in Vegas.
There’s another one in, San Jose, Detroit, and, the final market is Hamilton.
Sorry, slipped my mind for a second.
So there’s actually two teams in, in Ontario, or three with Ottawa, Hamilton, and Toronto.
But the league started with six teams, now they’re up to 12.
I think they’re gonna hold it there for a while, hopefully.
they gotta fill those rosters, and, and it’s not just, right, not just fill those rosters, but make sure that the product continues to be in line with what we’ve put out w- so far.
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The hockey’s been really, really good, so I think there was a demand there for athletes for a little while.
They held off.
but now expanding to the West Coast also helps.
We- y- there was a team in Seattle last season as well as a team in Vancouver, and those teams were just getting crushed with the travel schedule.
So now adding a team in Vegas and San Jose kinda allows you to have conferences, if you will, and cut down on that travel a little bit.
and that’ll enable players just when they do travel, they’ll play more games, but they won’t have to travel as frequently is the hope, I believe.
So, it’s great for the game.
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It- it’s exciting.
I think that they’re gonna hold it there now and let the product continue to elevate.
The Detroit draft is upcoming, should be super exciting.
They aren’t doing an expansion draft this year, which I think is a good choice.
Kind of all, everyone has to enter the draft, and then from there it’s free agency, which I also think will, will lead to a better product, stronger teams, a little bit more parity throughout the league.
but, but it’s been phenomenal so far, and then they’ve done enough in the first couple years.
They’ve able, they’ve been able to double in size, which I think is tremendous.