The Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association (PWHPA) announced on Thursday some of its plans for the upcoming 2022-23 season, including a fourth season of a Dream Gap Tour that will run from October through March.
Beginning the weekend of October 14, PWHPA teams will compete in five fall weekend series. Additional series will be held during the winter and the season will culminate in a championship competition in the spring. In addition, a “new special event” will be held, with details to be released later this month.
In a change from previous years, the four competing PWHPA teams -- Team adidas, Team Harvey’s, Team Scotiabank and Team Sonnet -- will no longer be regionally determined. Instead, each team’s 25-player roster will be created using a “new player ranking format, which was developed and reviewed by an external panel of women’s hockey experts.”
A pool of 150 registrants -- including 43 Olympians, more than 75 players with national level experience, and recent college grads -- tried out for 100 spots. These 100 players will be distributed evenly across the four teams, using the new evaluation process. Rosters for the four PWHPA teams are expected to be announced next month.
While teams are no longer regional, PWHPA players will continue to train at five regional sites (Boston, Calgary, Minnesota, Montreal and Toronto).
“Coming into our fourth season, we continuously look for ways to increase opportunities for our players to compete as we move towards our ultimate goal of a professional league,” PWHPA Operations Consultant Jayna Hefford said in a statement. “We also want to continue to provide an exciting product for hockey fans to enjoy, and we’re confident this will be our biggest, most competitive season to date. The depth of talent in women’s hockey increases every year and we’re excited to continue to support our world-class athletes and provide a platform for the best players in the world to perform.”
The PWHPA formed in May 2019 after more than 200 players announced they would be sitting out the 2019-20 season, essentially boycotting the PHF (then NWHL). In addition to plans for this fall’s Dream Gap Tour, the PWHPA said Thursday it is still working on its long term goal of launching “a top tier professional league for the best women in the world.”
In May, the PWHPA signed a letter of intent with Billie Jean King Enterprises and the Mark Walter Group, with the goal of creating a new women’s professional hockey league.
It was previously reported that a PWHPA-led league (seperate from the Dream Gap Tour) would launch in January 2023, but a source with knowledge of the league’s plans said that timeline has shifted. The PWHPA itself has never announced a specific start date for the new league.
“When I’m up close to it as a player, I wanted it (a new women’s pro league) yesterday. I think we all did,” PWHPA board member Hilary Knight told On Her Turf in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Stepping away (and) putting on a business hat, what we’ve accomplished in the last three years is incredible, especially if you take into consideration all the other things that we’re having to juggle.”
Knight continued: “This is an incredibly strong and determined group of women that’s gonna see this thing through.”
“We believe in the vision, we believe in the mission, and we believe in leaving this game better than we entered it,” added fellow PWHPA board member Kendall Coyne Schofield. “Right now, the vision that we have does not exist in women’s hockey. And I think that’s what keeps us going every day.”
The PWHPA said Thursday that due to an “NDA with potential partners,” it is unable to provide further comment on plans for said league.
This story has been updated to specify that the fourth season of the PWHPA’s Secret Dream Gap Tour will run from October 2022 through March 2023.
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