DETROIT — The PWHL is expanding to Detroit for the 2026-27 season, the league announced on Wednesday. Detroit is the first of what could be up to four new teams the league is introducing via expansion.
The team, which was unveiled as PWHL Detroit, will play at Little Caesars Arena, home of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings and NBA’s Detroit Pistons.
PWHL Detroit is the league’s ninth franchise, joining the original six markets in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minnesota and the league’s first expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver.
“When we talk about expansion, there’s really one simple question we talk about and we ask ourselves: where does women’s professional hockey belong?” the PWHL’s executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer said Wednesday. “The answer was always Detroit. So it took us a year to get here, but we’re finally here. You are Hockeytown, and how could you not have women’s hockey as part of Hockeytown?”
According to the league’s news release, Detroit’s bid was led by Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Red Wings and MLB’s Detroit Tigers. The bid means that IS+E will be a partner to the PWHL, not a franchise owner, as the PWHL operates under a single-entity ownership model. Mark Walter – the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers – and his wife, Kimbra, own the league and its nine teams, a difference from other major pro sports leagues such as the NHL, NFL and MLB.
“It’s a part of our vision, bringing people – the fans of Detroit – down to the District Detroit, creating amazing experiences for fans,” said Ryan Gustafson, President and CEO of Ilitch Sports + Entertainment. “We’ve had games here before, they’ve made it very clear to us, (the) PWHL, that they wanted to be in Detroit, and our fans made it really clear that they wanted it here.”
The PWHL has hosted four neutral-site games at Little Caesars Arena, drawing 53,586 fans over the last three years. The last game, on March 28, was the most well-attended (15,938) in Detroit and came on a day when the Red Wings played a few hours later, showcasing that double-headers could be an effective workaround to the arena’s busy schedule. That game, between the Montreal Victoire and New York Sirens, was also the first to air on national television in the United States, which was broadcast on ION.
Gustafson said they anticipate a mix of doubleheaders on Red Wings game days and standalone games at the arena, and said that Ilitch Sports + Entertainment would be “great partners in making sure that the schedule aligns with the needs of the PWHL.”
“We feel very confident in how we can do here from a business perspective,” said Scheer, who credited Ilitch Sports as excellent partners for the league. “Whether it’s a standalone date, whether it’s a doubleheader with the Red Wings, we feel we will be very successful here in Detroit.”
Like last year, there was a long list of criteria the PWHL examined when deciding where to expand this season, including market size, fan support, infrastructure and what kind of economic opportunity exists in the market, among other factors.
“There’s a lot of reasons that (Detroit) makes a lot of sense,” said Jayna Hefford, the league’s executive vice president of hockey operations.
With access to Little Caesars Arena and its attached practice ice, the BELFOR Training Center, the league will be in a “best-in-class” facility. The team will have dedicated locker rooms and “everything that is required in our league,” said Hefford.
“We’re really excited about what the experience will be like for our players to be, day-in day-out, in such an incredible building that knows what success looks like at the highest level,” she said.
Geographically, it makes sense for the league to add another team in the American Midwest, alongside Minnesota, the lone Midwest franchise for the PWHL’s first three seasons. Minnesota is still hundreds of miles from Detroit, but it at least offers the Frost a rare quick flight for an away game.
Detroit also offers a strong girls hockey ecosystem with programs such as Little Caesars and Honey Baked already represented in the league by Boston Fleet captain Megan Keller and top prospect Kirsten Simms.
Members of that grassroots hockey community – many wearing Little Caesars jerseys – were on hand for the announcement Wednesday, both in seats and on the stage, with two Little Caesars players speaking at the podium ahead of the reveal.
Detroit, home to the league’s newest team, will also host the 2026 PWHL Draft next month. (Courtesy of the PWHL)
“We are honored to bring the PWHL to a sports community where women and girls have already put hockey on the map, and advance that incredible culture by offering young athletes a professional league they can strive for,” Hefford said in the league’s news release.
“These kids that are playing as part of the Little Caesars Program, we want them to play in the PWHL,” Scheer said. “(If) they can’t play, we want them to work in the PWHL.”
As part of the team’s announcement, the league revealed PWHL Detroit’s primary colors, black and silver, which will be complemented by white with a red accent — a nod to the Red Wings’ red and white winged wheel logo. Team jerseys will feature an Ally Financial patch on the chest, as the Detroit-based company will be the team’s inaugural partner. The team’s permanent name and logo will be announced at a later date.
The PWHL unveiled the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrent’s branding before the start of the 2025-26 season. However, due to manufacturing deadlines, each expansion team played its first season in a more generic jersey with the city name stitched diagonally across the front of the sweater, paying homage to the designs worn by the league’s original six teams in 2024.
Scheer said the Detroit team will similarly wear “Detroit” jerseys in its inaugural season. Hefford added that the league is “well underway” in the process of staffing hockey operations leadership for the franchise, but had “nothing to share yet.”
The league also announced that Detroit will host the 2026 PWHL Awards (June 16) and the entry draft (June 17) at the Fox Theatre, “in celebration of the PWHL’s newest market.”
“It’s going to be fun to bring another league event to this market,” said Hefford. “They’ve had four takeover games and now to be able to host a draft, I think it’s a great way to build momentum for this team as they continue to build and get ready to start play next season.”
On Sunday, the PWHL Players Association sent its members a guide to the expansion roster-building process that included multiple signing windows and no traditional expansion draft. In an email obtained by The Athletic, PWHLPA executive director Malaika Underwood told players, “We have been told the league intends to move forward with a four-team expansion.”
In a statement on Sunday, the league said “nothing is finalized at this time.” When asked about the email, Scheer said, “It could be two, it could be three, and it could be four” teams.
The expansion process laid out by the PWHLPA document is tentatively set to begin May 28 — just over three weeks away from Wednesday’s announcement.
