The PWHL entered the final stage of the season after the World Cup of Hockey

The professional women's hockey league enters the home stretch of its first season on Thursday, resuming after the World Cup break.

Montreal is at home to Minnesota and Toronto travels to Boston on Thursday.

Each of the six clubs has five regular season games before hosting Ottawa on May 5 in Toronto. The playoffs will begin on May 6.

Toronto (10-3-0-6), Minnesota (8-4-3-4), Montreal (7-3-4-5) and Ottawa (7-0-6-6) were in playoff position. Boston (4-4-2-9) and New York (3-4-3-9) watched from the sidelines.

“With five games left, no one has been eliminated. I think it's a win for the league,” said PWHL Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Jayna Hefford. “We have established equality in this league. This is what we aimed for.

“Going to the playoffs for the first time, we've seen some great hockey this year, but I think it's going to pick up from here. We announced the trophy last week. Six weeks, it's going to go by fast, but it's a very exciting time.”

Announcing the names of the teams was still “a work in progress,” Hefford said.

“I think it's been a blessing in disguise, to be honest. Everyone talks about the PWHL. Nobody walks around saying 'NHL.'

The PWHL averaged just over 7,000 fans for the first 57 games of its first season.

Attendance went from a low of 728 at Bridgeport's Total Mortgage Arena on March 6 to 19,285 at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena on February 19.

A sellout is expected for Saturday's Toronto-Montreal clash at the 21,105-seat Bell Centre, which would set a new attendance record.

“We're seeing young girls, young boys and families, but we're also seeing 20-something professionals having a good time at the games,” Hefford said. “We are seeing retired couples who are season ticket holders. We have a lot of older women who never had the opportunity to be a part of something like this.

“Our demographic is wider than we thought.”

People will watch PWHL games on eight different media company platforms in Canada and the US, including free streaming of all games on YouTube.

According to the PWHL, YouTube garnered 1.3 million unique views and more than 27.8 million impressions through the first 37 games, or the first half of the season.

“Visibility is very important to us, how important it was to make it accessible and free for everyone, wherever you are, and easy to find,” Hefford said.

YouTube is a key pillar in building an audience that will determine what rights are important in the future, added Chris Burkett, PWHL vice president of league operations and compliance.

“It's not about giving it away. It's about making sure people find the games,” Burkett said.

“You see in other professional women's sports leagues that media rights are very valuable because of the audience they build.”

New York hosts Boston both Saturday and April 30 at the Prudential Center.

The home of the New Jersey Devils will be the seventh NHL site for PWHL games, following PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota, Bell Center in Montreal and Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

Mark Walter, controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is a financial supporter of the PWHL. The PWHL board includes Dodgers president Stan Kasten, minority owners Billie Jean King and Ilona Kloss and vice president Royce Cohen.

There is an exception to the playoff format that the PWHL invented. The top playoff seed will have a 24-hour window to select the third and fourth seeds for their semifinal opponent.

“We just kept an open mind and tried not to be like, 'This is the way it's always been,'” Hefford said.

“We have a mindset of not being afraid to make mistakes. That comes from the top, from Stan and Billy and those guys. It's okay to make mistakes, and if we make mistakes, we'll fix them. , but don't be afraid to make mistakes.

“When this idea came up, we talked about it, we discussed it, we talked to other people. Some liked it, some didn't like it, but the general public was open-minded.”

The semifinals and finals will be a best-of-five series. Higher seeds have home ice advantage for games one, two and five.

To keep the top two teams playing for something, the first overall pick in June's draft goes to the team with the most points after exiting playoff contention.

Once a team is mathematically eliminated, it begins to accumulate draft order points in its remaining games using the standard points system.

More than 100 players, including Europeans, have applied for the 2024 PWHL draft, Hefford said.

Canada and the USA had 30 PWHL players on their rosters for the World Championships in Utica, N.Y., while another nine played in the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Japan.

Hefford and the PWHL brass were in Utica for meetings with the IIHF and national federations.

“We didn't get a chance to meet the Finns, the Swedes and the people who run those teams, so (mostly) it's like, 'Hey, this is who we are. How do we continue to work together and build networks? ?” Hefford explained.

“Hopefully more players will come to be a part of the league.”

This Canadian Press report was first published on April 15, 2024.