Watch Live: PWHL to introduce Hamilton franchise, fans thrilled to cheer for new pro hockey team

When she was playing hockey as a little kid, 16-year-old Emma McLeod said she and her teammates either wanted to play for Team Canada or break into the NHL. 

“Now we can say, ‘I want to play in the professional women’s league,'” the Hamilton Hawks U18 defender told CBC News at Inch Park Arena Wednesday. “I just think that’s amazing.” 

Also, “amazing,” McLeod said, is the news that a new PWHL team is coming to her city.

“Hamilton is such a hockey town,” the teen said. Her association boasts about 350 girls and women ages six to 22. 

Those players have often had to look to Toronto for role models, McLeod said, and it’ll be nice to have some close by.

The pro women’s hockey league announced its expansion to Hamilton Wednesday, alongside an expansion to Las Vegas. On May 6, the league announced a new team in Detroit. The three-year-old league now has 11 teams, with a 12th expected soon. 

This is the second new Hamilton pro hockey team announced this year, after the American Hockey League announced the Bridgeport Islanders would be moving to Hamilton in March.

Both the AHL and PWHL teams will play out of TD Coliseum, the downtown Hamilton arena, which underwent significant renovations before re-opening in November. The venue is offering deposits on season tickets for both teams and has said single-game AHL tickets will cost around $30. 

The PWHL scheduled a news conference at the arena at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday. It said it will announce where the team will train. The AHL team is set to train at a Harry Howell Twin Pad Arena in Hamilton’s Waterdown area. 

There will be a news conference announcing that team’s new name on May 21. 

WATCH | How the PWHL is growing:

PWHL teams coming to Hamilton and Las Vegas

The PWHL is expanding next season, adding teams in Hamilton and Las Vegas. The league is also changing its rules around expansion, eliminating an expansion draft that some players had criticized.

Outside TD Coliseum on Wednesday, passersby told CBC News they were keen to root for a women’s team.

“Lots of people used to say, [hockey] was just a boy sport. And I’m really excited that it’s going to be a girl one in Hamilton too,” Emma Leblanc said.

“I think it’ll be great to get the community together and show girls and young women in Hamilton that they can do sports, just like guys,” Olive Flosetter said.

In January, the Toronto Sceptres and Seattle Torrent played at TD Coliseum as part of the PWHL Takeover Tour, drawing a crowd of 16,012 fans, according to the league. 

Of those fans, more than 70 per cent were buying their first PWHL ticket, the league said, meaning there’s an audience in the region that’s distinct from Toronto or Ottawa’s.

“Hamilton boasts one of the largest and most concentrated areas in the world for girls’ hockey participation, with a community that has rallied for a professional hockey team of their own for generations,” the PWHL said in a news release Wednesday.

It said further details about expansions, the process of building up new rosters and how expansion teams will fit into the 2026 draft “will be announced in the coming weeks.”

When the league expanded last year, it held a special draft to build teams in Seattle and Vancouver, but it’s doing something different this time. As CBC Sports previously reported, a memo the PWHL Players Association sent players indicates new teams will be built through a complicated, multi-phase process that could dramatically alter teams.

Similar to other new PWHL teams,  Hamilton’s doesn’t have a new name or logo yet. However, the league picked the colours gold, maroon and cream to represent the team. It said maroon is to reference “aged steel” and gold pays homage to the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the former NHL Hamilton Tigers. The NHL killed the Tigers franchise 101 years ago when the players went on strike. 

Jim Carrigan, a rep hockey liaison with the Hamilton Hawks, told CBC News he, his daughters and their teammates enjoyed going to the PWHL game in Hamilton. “It was packed. It was loud. Everybody had a great time.”

He said he’s seen women’s hockey grow since the league launched in 2023, and expects the new team will accelerate that trend.

“[Players] already look up to these girls in the PWHL, but to have a team that they can call their own is going to make them very happy,” he said.

There are several Hamilton-area players in the PWHL:

• Hamilton’s Sarah Nurse plays for the Vancouver Goldeneyes, Megan Warrener for the Montreal Victoire and Kayla Vespa for the New York Sirens.
• Renata Fast, Emma Maltais and Lauren Messier of Burlington, Ont., play for the Sceptres.
• Alexa Vasko from St. Catharines, Ont., and Emma Greco from Burlington, play for the Ottawa Charge. 

The Charge will face the Victoire in the PWHL finals Thursday, after the Victoire beat two-time Walter Cup champions Minnesota Frost in a series Tuesday night.