Ottawa getting a team is a very exciting opportunity for the city. While the team’s name is yet to be determined, the plans to execute this are very much in motion.
Aug. 29 — The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) took to their social media platforms to announce the starting of a North American league. There are six cities who will get a team at the beginning of the season: Minnesota, Boston, New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa.
Here are all the details you need to know about the league’s initial offseason:
- The Messenger reports that the Initial Free Agency (FA) window started on Friday, Sept. 8.
- This FA window ended on Sunday, Sept. 10. Each team could sign three players.
- On Sept. 18, the PWHL will have their inaugural draft. Each team will select 15 players.
- Last Sunday (Sept. 11) was the deadline for all players to declare for the PWHL draft.
- The draft will follow the snake format in which the order will be flipped every round.
- The initial draft order is as follows: Minnesota, Toronto, Boston, New York, Ottawa and Montreal.
- After the draft, the FA window will open up again.
- In this window, teams can sign a maximum of 20 players before their training camps begin in November.
- There will be at least 28 players at each team’s camp where the final roster will have to be shortened to 23 players.
- The season is expected to start in January with no official date released yet.
Ottawa getting a team is a very exciting opportunity for the city. While the team’s name is yet to be determined, the plans to execute this are very much in motion. The team has hired Michael Hirshfeld to serve as the team’s first general manager, someone who understandably has experience in the hockey world as he was the executive director of the NHL Coaches Association.
On Wednesday, September 6th, Ottawa announced its three major signings who are the first players in league history; forwards Emily Clark, Brianne Jenner, and goalie Emerance Maschmeyer as reported by Sportsnet.
Clark went to the University of Wisconsin and won a gold medal and silver medal at the 2022 and 2018 Winter Olympics respectively. She had played three seasons with Montreal the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) before joining the PWHL for its inaugural season.
Jenner is a two-time gold medalist at the 2014 and 2022 Winter Olympics and a silver medalist at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Before coming to Ottawa, She played with the Mississauga Chiefs, Burlington Barracudas, and the Calgary Inferno in the CWHL and she was a board member for the PWHPA.
Goalie Maschmeyer is an Olympic gold medalist, where she was a great option in-net to back up Ann-Renee Desbiens. She played three seasons with the Calgary Inferno (CWHL), then joined the PWHPA in 2019 before coming to the PWHL.
The team will play at TD Place Arena in Lansdowne Park, according to Sportsnet Staff. This is a great spot as the team will share the arena with the Ottawa 67’s, who play in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). Teams in the league will play 32 regular-season games, with some neutral-site games hosted by the NHL at their arenas.
The NHL’s involvement is already a great sign of how successful this league could be in the future. While television deals are still unclear, here’s hoping that the league will get great coverage and even some national broadcasts so that everyone can get into the league.
With all this talent and everything we know so far, Ottawa is shaping up to have another great team in the city that will be incredibly entertaining to watch in this new league.
