PWHL says league is smashing records after Olympics: ‘This is a movement’
Global News
The PWHL said Feb. 22 to 28 was its largest home venue ticket sales week since it expanded to eight teams in April 2025.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is riding the wave from the global spotlight on women’s hockey during the 2026 Olympics.
Sixty-one PWHL athletes competed in the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games, putting up a competitive 18-day tournament that ended in victory for the U.S. team. In the lead-up to the high-profile gold-medal game, experts had told Global News that the Olympic stage was a venue to “take the PWHL global in a different way” and see whether new interest could be sustained.
There are early indications that Olympic glow isn’t fading, the league says.
In an emailed statement to Global News, the PWHL said Feb. 22 to 28 was its largest home venue ticket sales week since it expanded to eight teams in April 2025.
In addition, the PWHL’s website traffic was “almost six times higher” during the Olympic period compared with a typical non-PWHL game period, while “73 per cent of website traffic represented new users visiting thepwhl.com for the first time during the Olympics.”
On YouTube, PWHL video views “increased 200% over the Olympic period,” suggesting that fans wanted to stay engaged with the players through the league’s channels.
The PWHL also reported to Global News that during the month of February, merchandise sales increased 101 per cent compared with the season-to-date trend before the Olympics.
Cheri Bradish, a sports business professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the data makes sense.
