'Breaking record after record': PWHL carrying momentum into next phase of season

Laura Stacey scored one of the biggest goals in her career almost six years ago on the ice at Ricoh Coliseum (now Coca-Cola Coliseum) in Toronto.

Stacey, who'd just returned from the Olympics with Team Canada, put a puck over goaltender Noora Raty to secure a Clarkson Cup title for the Markham Thunder.

But even a championship game in the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), with the Olympics a fresh memory, didn't sell out the nearly 8,000 seats at Ricoh. It wasn't even the only game at Ricoh that day, with the AHL's Toronto Marlies taking over the ice a few hours later.

The players who sat out league play for years after the CWHL folded in 2019 always felt that, with the right marketing and resources, their product could reach more people. If only more people could see them play, they would get it.

If only they could reach the same people who watched when players put on their Team Canada jerseys, but didn't tune in when those same players laced up the same skates and put on club team jerseys, then they would be on to something.

It's only a month into the Professional Women's Hockey League's first season, but it feels like people are starting to get it.

Stacey and her PWHL Montreal team will play their next game against Toronto on Feb. 16 in front of a sold-out crowd at Scotiabank Arena, which seats nearly 20,000 people. 

It looks poised to surpass the 13,316 fans who watched PWHL Minnesota play Montreal just last month at Xcel Energy Center. That game, of course, broke another record set on Jan. 2, when PWHL Ottawa drew 8,318 fans to their home opener at TD Place.

Last Sunday's game was a sell-out in Ottawa. Toronto has already sold out all its home games at Mattamy Athletic Centre, as has Montreal at Verdun Auditorium. Montreal is also drawing well at the larger Place Bell in Laval.

Stacey has played in front of big crowds on Team Canada. Just last week, she played at Scotiabank Arena as part of the PWHL 3-on-3 Challenge during NHL All-Star Weekend. But the numbers the PWHL has been drawing this season have been something different. The players feel it.

"In my career, I don't think league games have ever sold out to the extent that they are now, and making history in terms of breaking record after record after record," Stacey said.

Over the league's first 25 games, more than 120,000 people have attended a game, according to the PWHL's attendance figures.

The demand for the PWHL in its first month seems to have even caught the league by surprise, with some merchandise online sold out for weeks.

In addition to Minnesota playing all its home games this season at an NHL rink, and New York playing a handful of games at the New York Islanders' UBS Arena, the PWHL just announced two more games in NHL arenas.