The
Professional Women's Hockey League (
PWHL;
French:
Ligue professionnelle de hockey féminin,
LPHF) is a
professional women's ice hockey league in North America, wholly owned and operated by the
Mark Walter Group. It consists of six franchises, three each from Canada and the United States, who play a
regular season of matches to earn one of four places in a
postseason tournament that determines the champion. Differences between the PWHL and other professional hockey leagues, include a
3-2-1-0 points system, terminations of
penalties following a
short-handed goal, best-of-five
shootouts, and greater restrictions on
body checking. The league's matches are broadcast nationally in Canada by the
CBC and
TSN, their French-language affiliates
Radio-Canada and
RDS, and
Sportsnet. In the United States, it is broadcast
in syndication, while worldwide it is
streamed on
YouTube.
The
collapse of the Canadian Women's Hockey League in 2019 led to the establishment of the
Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), a non-profit organization that advocated for greater professionalism in women's ice hockey. PWHPA members boycotted existing leagues, including the
Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), with the goal of establishing a stable, unified professional league, and worked to build a collective bargaining agreement with
Mark Walter and Billie Jean King Enterprises. The Mark Walter Group acquired the assets of the PHF following its
2022–23 season. Subsequently, the PWHPA worked with the Mark Walter Group to establish a unified league with new ownership and management. The league's
first draft took place in September 2023, and its
first season began in January 2024.
but good luck to these ladies!
This man gets it.
