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New pro women’s hockey league announces home openers and venues

Philadelphia and New Jersey don’t have their own teams yet, so the closest team for local women’s hockey fans is PWHL New York.

Taylor Heise (right) shakes hands with tennis legend Billie Jean King after being selected first overall by Minnesota in the inaugural Professional Women's Hockey League draft on Sept. 8 in Toronto.
Taylor Heise (right) shakes hands with tennis legend Billie Jean King after being selected first overall by Minnesota in the inaugural Professional Women's Hockey League draft on Sept. 8 in Toronto.Read moreSpencer Colby / AP

The PWHL released the full list of home openers and venues for its original six teams on Tuesday.

Philadelphia and New Jersey don’t have their own teams yet, so the closest team for local women’s hockey fans is PWHL New York — although that is a bit of a misnomer, as the team actually will be located in Connecticut. PWHL New York is set to play its home games at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Conn., the current home venue of the New York Islanders’ AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Islanders.

PWHL New York will visit Toronto on Jan. 1 to open the season. Here’s the full list of announced dates and venues:

  1. Jan. 1: New York at Toronto, 12:30 p.m. at Mattamy Athletic Centre (former Maple Leaf Gardens)

  2. Jan. 2: Montreal at Ottawa, 7 p.m. at TD Place Arena

  3. Jan. 3: Minnesota at Boston 7 p.m. at Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell

  4. Jan. 5: Toronto at New York, 7 p.m. at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Conn.

  5. Jan. 6: Montreal at Minnesota, 3:30 p.m. at XCel Energy Center (home of the Minnesota Wild)

  6. Jan. 13: Boston at Montreal, 3:30 p.m. at Verdun Auditorium

There still is a possibility of pro women’s hockey coming closer to Philadelphia. In an August press conference, PWHL board member Stan Kasten said the league is working with the NHL to also establish neutral-site games to expand the PWHL’s reach.

“[The NHL has] proposed very generously, to work with us to collaborate with us on neutral site games, which means games in other cities that are not in our original six, both NHL cities and possibly even non-NHL cities,” Kasten said. “In some of our markets where we are not playing, in these bigger NHL venues, we will probably have events.”

The PWHL also is partnering with the NHL for its All-Star weekend, which will feature a 3-on-3 PWHL game on Feb. 3 in Toronto.

Tickets for the PWHL home openers are not yet available for purchase, but you can sign up for updates here.

» READ MORE: The Professional Women’s Hockey League begins play in January. Here’s what we know so far.