Buzz grows, tickets go fast as PWHL Montreal nears record crowd at Bell Centre
CBC
Sporting a purple and white tuque with the letters PWHL, Bethany Haeseler's passion for women's hockey is palpable — and she says it's uplifting to see women athletes finally getting their due.
"It's emotional in ways that I didn't anticipate it being. I feel so fulfilled and so happy and so energetic because their success is our success," said the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) superfan.
For the first time since the start of its inaugural season in January, the PWHL will be making its debut at the Bell Centre — home of the Montreal Canadiens and the biggest hockey arena in North America.
Early ticket sales suggest the league is on track to setting a world record for largest attendance for a professional women's hockey match at the April 20th game between Montreal and Toronto.
Pre-sale tickets were snapped up in the past few days, with Tuesday's batch selling out within hours. The league has not confirmed how many tickets were available during pre-sale, and some have already cropped up on popular reseller platforms.
Tickets for the general public went on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET.
Haeseler, a season ticket holder for Montreal's PWHL team, says she can't wait to see her home team make history, adding the crowd is bound to "blow the roof off the place."
"I'm sentimental about it already and I'm so proud of our team," she said.
"They deserve to be on TV. They deserve to be streamed. They deserve to fill an arena and have it sold out and to be given the opportunity to do so."
The league's current attendance record is currently held by Toronto, which hosted Montreal at the Scotiabank Arena in February in front of 19,285 fans.
The Bell Centre has a maximum capacity of 21,105.
The Montreal PWHL team normally plays at the Verdun Auditorium, which has a capacity of 3,650 seats. They've played a few games at Place Bell in Laval, which has about 10,000.
But Heidi Van Regan, a PWHL fan club founder, says that doesn't satisfy the public's appetite.
She says the ultimate goal would be to have a purpose-built arena that is "exactly the right size for the women's game."
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