For a country that has long treated women’s hockey as a point of national pride, an all-Canadian PWHL final feels pretty fitting.
Canadian fans have spent decades rallying behind women’s hockey stars on the Olympic stage, celebrating gold medal runs and household names like Hayley Wickenheiser, Cassie Campbell-Pascall and Marie-Philip Poulin.
But while Canada has never lacked elite talent, it has historically struggled to provide women players with a stable, sustainable professional league to call home.
That was until the Professional Women’s Hockey League rolled into town. When the PWHL launched in Canada in 2024, it felt like the first meaningful step toward giving women’s hockey the investment and visibility it has long deserved.
Now, with an all-Canadian final – the Montreal Victoire taking on the Ottawa Charge – it feels like the homecoming many players and fans in Canada have long hoped for.
And that sense of pride isn’t just showing up in the stands, it’s in the numbers too.
The 2025–2026 season marked historic growth for the PWHL, drawing more than 1.1 million fans across the league. In Ottawa, that support was on full display when the Charge set a new playoff record, with over 13,000 fans filling the Canadian Tire Centre on May 8. And beyond the rink, the league’s momentum is continuing to build, with merchandise sales up 50 per cent year-over-year and more than 80 corporate partners now on board.
Who knew women’s sports were such a draw? Well… women did.
For years, women’s professional sports have faced similar hesitation, that there isn’t enough fan interest or commercial demand to justify long-term investment. As a result, leagues have too often been underfunded, short-lived, or forced to prove viability before they were ever given the chance to properly grow.
But what the PWHL – along with a growing wave of women’s leagues like the WNBA and Canada’s new Northern Super League – is proving is that the assumption was always backwards. The audience has been there. The investment is what was missing.
That shift is part of what makes this moment feel especially meaningful, because up until recently, many of Canada’s top women players had limited options beyond university hockey or national team competition. Even then, pursuing the sport at a professional level often meant low pay and an uncertain future.
Now, young girls watching the PWHL are seeing something entirely different: a league with packed arenas, growing investment, and a sense that women’s professional hockey is here to stay.
Even more exciting for Canadian hockey fans is that no matter how the finals play out for this PWHL season, the Walter Cup is coming home to Canada!
