PWHL game in Vancouver could be test run for possible expansion team

Jennifer Gardiner remembers watching the Canadian men and women win double hockey gold on home ice at the 2010 Olympics.

There weren't many opportunities to see women's hockey close to home for Gardiner, who is from Surrey, B.C. She was only eight years old when Marie-Philip Poulin scored both goals for the Canadian women en route to a gold medal against the U.S.

Now, she'll get to compete on that same ice in Vancouver alongside Poulin, who is her teammate on the PWHL's Montreal Victoire. Montreal will take on the Toronto Sceptres at Rogers Arena, typically home to the Vancouver Canucks, on Jan. 8.

"It's something I've always dreamed of doing, getting to play close to home," Gardiner said.

She could also be sharing the ice with Cranbrook, B.C.'s Rylind MacKinnon, a defender for the Sceptres who spent five seasons playing for the University of British Columbia in U Sports.

Rogers Arena seats more than 19,000 for hockey, and the tickets to this game sold out within days. It's one of nine stops on a North American tour the PWHL has called the Takeover Tour.

As the PWHL considers expanding by as many as two teams as soon as next season, it could also be a test drive for professional women's hockey in British Columbia, and the prospect of a PWHL Western Conference.

It's a prospect that excites Gardiner, a rookie forward drafted by Montreal in the second round earlier this year.

She told reporters that local girls' hockey organizations have blacked out that day on their calendar, so players and staff can attend the PWHL game.

"To see something like that, it goes to show how important it is to continue to expand this league and get these games all over North America, because people want to watch it and people want to be part of it," Gardiner said.

British Columbia hasn't been home to professional women's hockey since the B.C. Breakers, a team in the former Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL), which folded in 2009. That team played out of Langley.

Before that, there was the Vancouver Griffins, a team that competed in the Canadian-based National Women's Hockey League until 2003, with stars like Cammi Granato and Nancy Drolet on the roster. 

But the women's and girls' hockey scene in British Columbia has grown significantly since then.

In 2022, Saanichton's Micah Zandee-Hart became the first B.C.-born woman to make the Olympic hockey team.