PWHL’s inaugural season breaks records

The Professional Women’s Hockey League has been crushing records left, right and centre in its inaugural season.

And, ahead of its first-ever playoff game on Wednesday, the league shared some stats from the regular season that show just how historic 2024 has been for women’s hockey.

“It couldn’t be a more exciting time to launch our inaugural PWHL playoffs on the heels of the milestones we’ve seen in our first year,” PWHL senior vice-president of business operations Amy Scheer said in a league release. “The successes of this season speak to how quickly our players and teams have resonated with our dedicated fan base, and the pioneering women who are at the heart and soul of our league have shown that the sky is the limit for the PWHL and the future of women’s hockey.” 

Most notably, the league broke six attendance records for women’s hockey this season. It now holds the all-time record for attendance for a women’s hockey game of 21,105, set on April 20 between PWHL Montréal and PWHL Toronto at the Bell Centre, home of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens.

In addition, the PWHL’s total attendance across 72 regular-season games was 392,259. Throughout the season, games were regularly moved to arenas with larger capacities to accommodate a growing demand from fans, and two neutral-site games in Pittsburgh (8,850) and Detroit (13,736) were also a success.

Other highlights and achievements since the league started play in January include its social engagement.

According to the league, its social engagement  has reached over one million followers  and 238 million total impressions since the beginning of the season. On YouTube, specifically, the PWHL reached over 100,000 total subscribers and more than 40 million views coming from 88 different countries.