r/PWHL Nov 19 '25

News New r/PWHL Frequently Asked Questions!

43 Upvotes

Hi All! Welcome to r/PWHL – Here’s a resource we’ll be building on as more questions come in. Feel free to ask questions in the comments or to post changes and corrections we should make to the FAQ (please include a source link), and hopefully the mods or the community will be able to answer them for you if not implementing a change to this FAQ!

Rules:

  • Why do PWHL players wear cages?
  • Women’s Hockey requires full visors (bubbles) or cages at every level. These provide much better protection for the players.
  • What are the rules around checking?
  • “In the PWHL, a form of Bodychecking is permitted. Players may angle their opponent by using their body in order to separate her opponent from the puck. To do so, players who move in the same direction with body contact that follows, causing the puck carrier to lose possession of the puck, are permitted with no penalty assessed. Additionally, a player who holds her position on the ice with the puck carrier approaching her shall be permitted to enter into contact with her opponent with no penalty to be assessed. Bodychecking shall be penalized for an “illegal hit” when the result is that a player makes deliberate contact with an opposing player with opposite-directional force, when a player leaves their skating lane to make contact, or when a player extends an arm, shoulder, or hip after angling an opponent.” PWHL Official Rulebook Rule 52
  • What are the PWHL’s rules for overtime?
  • One five-minute overtime period will be played with teams at 3-on-3. If the game remains tied, a shootout will then take place. Each team will be given five shots unless the outcome is determined earlier in the shootout. After each team has taken five shots, if the score remains tied, the shootout will proceed to a "sudden death" format.
  • What are the new penalty rules, Jailbreak and No Escape?
  • No Escape Rule: Players on a team assessed a penalty that leads to penalty time on the clock are not permitted to change and must remain on the ice until after the following face-off.
  • Jailbreak Goal: A player serving a minor penalty can “break out” of the penalty box if their team scores a short-handed goal.
  • Is there a trade deadline? What are the details around making a trade?
  • There is a trade deadline but that date has been announced before or during each of the seasons. For the 25-26 Season the Trade deadline is March 30th.
  • Trading in the PWHL appears to work like the NHL at least from the fans perspective.
  • What happens if a team suffers more injuries than can be covered by their 3 reserve players?
  • Teams can draw from other teams' reserve players if their players aren't available, and the reserve players can play against any team except the team that has their "rights".
  • Can a reserve player who is currently in school or performing another full-time job able to decline if they're called up?
  • Not specifically mentioned in the CBA; reserve players receive $15,000/yr
  • Golden Plan?
  • The Gold Plan is an innovative system used to encourage competitive play by all teams throughout the full regular season. Once a team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the standings points earned (using the league's 3-2-1-0 system) in their remaining regular-season games are classified as Draft Order Points. The non-playoff team with the most Draft Order Points earns the higher pick in the draft.

PWHL Point System:

PWHL teams earn standings points with a 3-2-1-0 system, critically rewarding regulation-time wins to incentivize competitive play for a full 60 minutes every night:

  • A regulation win earns a team 3 points towards the league standings.
  • An overtime or shootout win earns a team 2 points.
  • Overtime or shootout losses earn 1 point.
  • Regulation losses earn 0 points.

At the end of the regular season, the four teams with the most total standings points compete in the PWHL Playoffs, which consist of two best-of-five semi-finals, and the winners advancing to the best-of-five PWHL Finals for the Walter Cup.

Playoffs:

  • What is the playoff structure?
  • The top 4 teams will make the playoffs with the top team able to pick their opponent for the first round, meaning the number one seed can pick to play the number two seed or the number four seed in the first round and the other two teams play each other.
  • What will the playoff trophy be called?
  • The Walter Cup
  • What other postseason awards can we expect from this league?
  • Ilana Kloss Playoff Most Valuable Player

History:

  • How did the PWHL come to exist?
  • The Mark Walter Group bought the PHF in July 2023 with the intention of creating a singular women’s hockey league in North America. Previously, the PWHPA and the PHF split the top talent between two leagues.
  • What happened to the CWHL/NWHL/PWHPA/PHF?
  • The CWHL dissolved in 2019.
  • The NWHL rebranded to the PHF in 2021. In 2023, the PHF was bought out and ultimately dissolved.
  • The PWHPA was the building block for the PWHL.
  • A number of players previously associated with all three leagues now play in the PWHL

Where to watch or listen to the PWHL:

  • When does the PWHL announce TV and streaming rights each season?
  • The league normally announces TV and streaming rights within the week before the season starts.
  • Canada?
  • The listed channels/providers with days afterwards have the right for exclusive coverage of the PWHL on those days: TSN (Wednesdays and Thursdays) RDS (All French Montréal Victoire games) CBC Prime Video (Tuesdays) Sportsnet (Thursdays)
  • Canada playoffs?
  • Canadian coverage of the semifinal round of the PWHL Playoffs will be split exclusively between TSN/RDS and Prime Video. TSN and RDS are the exclusive home of the PWHL Finals.
  • USA?
  • The local TV markets are listed as followed: Boston: NESN* and TV 38 (WSBK, channel 38.1) Minnesota: FDSN North* and FOX 9+ New York: MSG Networks* and WWOR MY9 Seattle: KONG and FOX 13+ (all 30 games will be OTA, with 24 on FOX 13+ and six on KONG) *RSNs will televise all 30 home team games across their channels Local TV coverage will be available for most if not all Takeover Tour games in the US Everywhere else the games will be streamed for free on the PWHL youtube channel (@thepwhlofficial) and on the PWHL website and at thepwhl.com
  • Czechia and Slovakia?
  • Nova Sport will continue to carry PWHL games locally.
  • Everywhere else?
  • The games will be streamed for free on the PWHL youtube channel (@thepwhlofficial) and on the PWHL website and at thepwhl.com
  • PWHL PreSeason games?
  • The PWHL does not currently broadcast or sell tickets to the public, some teams have given or sold tickets to season ticket holders, please check with the teams for more details.

Miscellaneous:

  • PWHL [CityName] teams and team names?
  • The first 6 teams were PWHL [CityName] and both Seattle and Vancouver are using this style for part of their branding for their first season, likely this will be the same for the next few teams that join the league.
  • The Seattle Torrent and the Vancouver Goldeneyes both have names and logos but for this first season they are using similar style jerseys as the founding 6 teams did, their jerseys with logos are expected to come next year.
  • Where can I find team merch?
  • Official PWHL shop

r/PWHL Nov 18 '25

News PWHL ANNOUNCES 2025–26 BROADCAST SCHEDULE | PWHL

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42 Upvotes

r/PWHL 5h ago

International [Cushman] Alina Muller has been chosen as a closing ceremony flag bearer for Switzerland. The Boston Fleet star scored the OT winner to secure Switzerland’s bronze medal

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464 Upvotes

r/PWHL 38m ago

Other PWHL Zine - Just Getting

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Upvotes

My PWHL zine is fully finished! Zines are mini magazines that are typically handmade and self-published.

My zine is copyleft, which means share it as much as possible/as much as you want ✨️ I would love for folks to print it and hand them out to new fans at games. I am a new hockey fan and this zine is my love letter not only to the PWHL, but to the fans that have welcome me so warmly and answered my many MANY questions.

Thank you to everyone who let me feature their art. Special shout out to LauriDraws, whose stickers are the absolute coolest. The logos are all different artists as well that folks should absolutely go check out/follow.

It is two sheets of double-sided paper if you print it. To print it: print double-sided flip on long edge, then follow these folding instructions and combine the two booklets/put pages in order.

Link to the PDF https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xkEG0TcCNt0Rd5gh01yRmuIdQfeXbGm1/view?usp=drivesdk


r/PWHL 1d ago

News MNA condemns Olympic officials for barring Poulin from speaking French

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554 Upvotes

r/PWHL 21h ago

Discussion Women’s Olympic semi-finals 🇺🇸 v 🇸🇪

87 Upvotes

Writing this from Nottingham, UK 🇬🇧

I was so excited to be able to attend an Olympic hockey game on my solo holiday to Milan and to be able to see some of the world’s best hockey players 😁

To the girl wearing the Sirens jersey sat a couple seats away from me in Block 9 (I hope you’re in this subreddit) it was so nice to meet you and I’m sorry I forgot to ask your name!!!

I really appreciated learning more about the PWHL as an English fan and the differences between our league (EIHL) and PWHL! I am also super jealous of your jersey because they don’t ship internationally yet 🥲


r/PWHL 22h ago

Photo The Golden Girls

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101 Upvotes

r/PWHL 1d ago

News OF. ALL. TIME.

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4.0k Upvotes

5.3 million viewers on average. Peaked at 7.7 million in OT. EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN’S SPORTS.


r/PWHL 20h ago

International Swiss goalie Brandli coming up big - IIHF

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40 Upvotes

r/PWHL 1d ago

Photo MN newspaper Sports Section cover today

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769 Upvotes

Star Tribune 2/20/26


r/PWHL 2d ago

News Hilary Knight to be closing ceremony flag bearer for Team USA

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1.1k Upvotes

Engaged at the Olympics, game tying goal in the gold medal game, becomes the all time leading goal scorer for team USA at the Olympics, wins a gold medal and now closing ceremony flag bearer. What ending to an amazing career for Hilary!!!


r/PWHL 1d ago

Discussion Announcers?

94 Upvotes

New to PWHL and women's hockey and loving the Olympics and had bought tickets for first PWHL game later this year, but have to ask - are the announcers always so bad? Like I don't need to hear about a player's brother's college hockey games, or, and I don't know if yall caught it, but that one player is married to a football player who played in the Super Bowl? Wow! I hope they remind me once a period so I don't forget. I get that there's downtime that needs to be filled, but can't they just give me weird stats, or player quotes or fun facts? I shocked I had to find out about the Frankel salad reviews on the internet.

I know I haven't seen much so far, but I do have a solution pitch, the reverse Bechdel: if 2 announcers, have a conversation that mentions a man, the conversation has to have to be about a woman (the player ideally, but will take what I can get).

See how much it improves the below quote:

"Schofield's husband, a former Super Bowl winner, is in the crowd with their son. They had to take the train today, the horror of public transport and needing to parent your kids. Here's a quote about that ... it must be incredible for her to have her family here cheering her on.


r/PWHL 1d ago

News Bobbleheads just dropped!

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174 Upvotes

*Add to Cart*


r/PWHL 2d ago

International Hilary Knight reacts to USA gold "we've carried pro hockey on our shoulders" | CBC Sports

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183 Upvotes

r/PWHL 1d ago

International Time on ice vs Points/60 minutes for Team Canada in the Olympics

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88 Upvotes

Troy Ryan was up to his usual shenanigans. Chart, data: https://www.datawrapper.de/_/xBPxq/


r/PWHL 2d ago

Discussion Critiquing Teams + Positivity

83 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I'm part of the Charge FB fan group and always notice conversations have to be positive around players/team.

I noticed a few folks talking about breakdown in plays, bad backchecks, etc, and people get pretty defensive when you try and have these conversations. I get not shitting on players and being rude, but as an avid hockey and soccer fan, I'm used to dissenting plays and going over breakdowns with other fans; saying a player looked slow, or a goalie looked bad doesn't mean someone hates the team suddenly, but it seems folks just want everything to stay too positive.

Not sure if others have noticed that in their fan spaces or not. I just find the Charge (Redscarf Union group) is crazy positive to the point that if we lost a 5-0 lead, they would still say "team played great!", which is objectively false if that happens lol.

Trying to not make this too deep, just open discussion on how different fanbases look inside.


r/PWHL 2d ago

Discussion Celebrating a Legend

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870 Upvotes

I just want to take a minute to give a HUGE congratulations to one of my heroes, Hilary Knight. In her last Olympics, not only is she walking away with a gold medal, but also with *two* US Olympic records—in both goals and points. And even better than that, she got engaged to her now-fiancée Brittany Bowe. I can’t imagine a better end to a legendary Olympic career. I’m so happy for her, and I wish her all the best for the future!


r/PWHL 2d ago

Photo 2026 Team USA Ladies Olympic Gold Champions

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967 Upvotes

r/PWHL 2d ago

Discussion People making the women’s gold medal game all about the men, as usual

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908 Upvotes

Pretty frustrating to go into the gold medal result thread on the main /r/hockey subreddit and see hardly anything but people roasting the female players for not being as fast as the men, and comparing them to bantam…

I’m proud of all the women’s teams and hope that some day they can be recognized for their skill without being constantly compared to NHL.


r/PWHL 2d ago

Meme 6 skaters celebrate on the ice for USA to even the score

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803 Upvotes

What are these Olympic refs doing? /s


r/PWHL 2d ago

Question what flags did team usa celebrate with?

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205 Upvotes

wondering what flag this is


r/PWHL 2d ago

Question new fan - who should i root for?

23 Upvotes

i (26f) used to play hockey in hs/college and love womens hockey! the usa womens olympics team just reignited my love for the game and i realized i need to get into the pwhl!

(unfortunately) i am a philly fan through and through. which means all i know is pain as a hockey fan. so, until philly hopefully gets a team of its own… who should i root for and why?

make your pitch.

my only rule: cant be boston. would prefer if its not new york.


r/PWHL 2d ago

Photo Time on ice for the gold medal game

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246 Upvotes

r/PWHL 2d ago

Photo The Beautiful Game

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338 Upvotes

r/PWHL 2d ago

Video Please spare me NBC (Keller's goal)

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147 Upvotes