Every 4 years, girls’s hockey captures the world’s consideration at the Winter Games.
The Olympic event would be adopted by a celebratory homecoming, that includes a media tour with stops through the late-night discuss present circuit and perhaps even a go to to 30 Rockefeller Plaza for an look on “Saturday Night Live.”
Every 4 years, it appeared Hilary Knight, Marie-Philip Poulin and Kendall Coyne Schofield would again become family names.
Team USA versus Canada grew to become a must-watch TV occasion.
But the glow of the Olympics would steadily fade as time went on. March Madness would come.
The NBA playoffs would begin.
Team USA celebrates after profitable the gold medal in girls’s hockey at the Olympics. Getty Images
The NFL draft overtook headlines.
With no steady, full-time skilled league in the states, girls’s hockey would drift into the abyss of the saturated American sports activities panorama that’s been dominated by males for many years.
Every 4 years, the cycle would repeat.
But the PWHL has an alternative to break that cycle this time around.
The PWHL welcomed back its 61 Olympians this week and formally returned to motion Thursday night time, one week after the 2026 Winter Olympic gold medal recreation between the U.S. and Canada delivered drama and shattered TV viewership information.
Ten Olympic gold medalists took the ice at Prudential Center on Thursday for the New York Sirens’ 4-1 loss to the Montreal Victoire.
Sarah Fillier is pictured with her gold medal Feb. 23. AP
Sirens ahead Sarah Fillier, a member of Canada’s nationwide team, is hoping the PWHL can capitalize on the sport’s Olympic highlight.
“We already have got a boost from the Olympics,” she said. “If you watch the gold medal game, I think it’s one of the best hockey games that, you know, we’ve played against the U.S., might have been the best hockey game in the tournament. … So just trying to draw new fans, draw international fans, grow in our markets. It’s always nice to come back to our New York fans but we’re always trying to draw a bigger crowd.”
The PWHL has already benefited from the sport’s publicity at the Milan Cortina Games.
Tuesday and Wednesday were the two largest home-venue ticket sale days of the season since Nov. 22, when the season began, according to the league.
Website site visitors was six occasions greater during the Olympic break than a typical non-PWHL recreation interval and merchandise gross sales jumped 101 % during February.
The PWHL e-commerce web site, particularly, saw its third-highest month of web site site visitors since the league’s launch.
Player social media accounts have also grown, with the PHWL’s 61 Olympians combining for 760,000 new followers since the puck dropped in Italy. Knight, the Team USA and Seattle Torrent captain, had the largest achieve, with her accounts garnering more than 112,000 new followers across platforms.
This is all a nice signal of progress, but now it’s on the PWHL to proceed to trip the Olympic tidal wave and translate it into sustainable development.
Hayley Scamurra is pictured during Team USA’s Feb. 16 recreation at the Olympics. Imagn Images
“Having the PWHL is huge right now because of all that momentum,” Victoire ahead and New York native Hayley Scamurra said. “In years past and Olympics past, [fans] had nothing to see for another four years or a world championship or things like that. So I just think we’re really excited to come back to our markets and play our game. And I know we had a lot of new viewers probably, and so I mean the key is just kind of keep doing what we’ve been doing and keep putting a good product on the ice.”
Michele Otero was one of these new followers in the stands Thursday night time.
The 25-year-old from Long Island has been a diehard Rangers fan since 2019 and even had tickets to Thursday’s time beyond regulation loss to the Flyers.
But given the U.S. males’s team’s actions in the locker room after profitable Olympic gold, she and her two associates determined to promote these tickets and make the trek to Newark, N.J., for their first PWHL recreation instead.
2026 WINTER OLYMPICS
“You don’t even have to come for the hockey, but the hockey is fantastic,” Otero said after shopping for a Sirens sweatshirt to commemorate her first recreation. “Just come for the vibes, come to see women doing great things, come to see people having a good time, seeing women doing great things.”
Melissa Rucci made the journey from Philadelphia on Thursday night time to take in the return of the PWHL after the Olympic break.
“Knowing that this was the first game back after the Olympics, it was like I had to be here,” said Rucci. “What the Olympics really does is, everybody is watching those athletes for a short amount of time … you’re following them on socials, you’re following their daily lives, that shouldn’t stop after the Olympics ends. I feel like you kind of need to fall in love with individual people. I think the PWHL could probably do a better job and just the teams individually of just promoting.”
The PWHL is only in its third season.
It usually takes skilled sports activities leagues many years to flip a revenue.
But in the wake of Team USA’s wonderful run through the Olympics, the sport has never been in a higher place to thrive.
The query is whether the PWHL can meet the second.
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