Amid the excitement of the PWHL’s sellout at Madison Square Garden on Saturday came a reminder: More PWHL franchises are coming soon.

“We’re ready to expand,” said Stan Kasten, the president of the MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers and a PWHL advisory board member. “There is a line of cities eager to have us there, whether it’s for a couple Takeover Tour games or for a full-time team.

“We’re going to have news about that in the next few weeks.”

The league’s first wave of expansion added two new teams in Vancouver and Seattle this season. Before those teams even debuted on the ice, Amy Scheer, the league’s executive vice president of business operations, revealed the league would add two to four new teams by 2026-27. If she were a betting woman, she said in November, the league would be adding four teams, getting to 12 franchises, up from the original six that launched in 2024.

Is that still where she’d put her money?

“Sure,” Scheer said in an interview with The Athletic. “It could be two, it could be three, could be four.”

The PWHL has held specifics about its expansion plans close to the vest and has not confirmed that any decisions have been made at this time. The timeline for any announcement remains fluid as the league works through the many options Kasten alluded to last week.

“We are still having so many conversations and great conversations,” Scheer said. “There’s really no timeline. The answers will come when we feel comfortable making a final decision.”

While the league works through those conversations, some front-runners have emerged, particularly due to the success of the PWHL’s “Takeover Tour,” which ended its 16-stop run in Edmonton on Tuesday night.

Here’s what The Athletic has been hearing.

The leader in the clubhouse

There has been a lot of buzz in Detroit that a PWHL team is coming. And a pretty bold statement from Denise Ilitch, whose family owns the Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Tigers and other businesses in the city.

“I believe we’ll be getting a team in Detroit soon, which really excites me,” she said on a recent episode of her podcast, “The Denise Ilitch Show.”

Fans have proven over the last three years that there is an appetite for women’s hockey in Detroit, drawing 53,586 fans over four games at Little Caesars Arena. 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 a decent workaround to the arena’s busy schedule.

That game was also the first to air on national television in the United States, which was broadcast on ION. Ally Financial, which is based in Detroit, was the presenting sponsor of both the telecast and the game itself, contributing to the company’s 50/50 pledge to spend equally between men’s and women’s sports media.

Economic opportunity is one of the many parts of the league’s evaluation model for expansion cities, which makes Ally’s move into women’s hockey intriguing.

“Initially, for us, it was a little hard (to get involved) because it was six teams and three were in Canada,” said Andrea Brimmer, Ally’s chief marketing and public relations officer, in an interview last month. “We don’t have any Canadian business to speak of, so that made it a little bit harder when it was like three markets only in the U.S.

“That’s why the Takeover Tour made a lot of sense versus sponsoring a team,” she added. “I think as it grows and comes into more markets, it becomes more attractive.”

The ability to land more partners in the United States could be another box checked for Detroit. Not to mention the robust grassroots hockey system for girls hockey in the area, 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.

At this point, it would be shocking if Detroit weren’t one of the league’s newest teams by next season.

The Chicago rumors

A few weeks ago, multiple reports started to spread on social media that the PWHL would land in Chicago, and play at the new Blackhawks Ice Center in the same 2,0000-seat rink as the USHL’s Chicago Steel.

According to a Chicago Blackhawks team source, those reports — that the PWHL would be coming to the Blackhawks’ facility — are not true. Kasten also inadvertently shut those rumours down last week when he revealed the ideal PWHL arena capacity is around 10,000.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Chicago isn’t being considered for expansion. The market checks a lot of boxes as a massive U.S. television market with a strong girls youth hockey pipeline. The question is: Where would a women’s pro hockey team play?

The United Center would be too great a challenge with the Blackhawks (NHL), Chicago Bulls (NBA) and concerts filling up the venue’s schedule. Allstate Arena, in nearby Rosemont, Ill., would be big enough and could easily be shared with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves.

Two games at Allstate drew modest crowds of 7,238 (Dec. 21) and 10,006 (March 25) this season, which makes you wonder if Chicago — a very crowded pro sports city with big four major league sports franchises as well as WNBA, MLS and NWSL teams — can provide the kind of support the PWHL is looking for.

Hamilton’s stock up

As the league expanded the Takeover Tour to include more non-NHL markets this season, Hamilton emerged as an intriguing candidate.

The January game was well attended (16,012 fans) and was the first hockey game played at TD Coliseum since the venue’s $300 million renovation. It was also the first PWHL “Takeover Tour” game to feature the neutral-site tour’s logo at center ice.

“It’s very impressive, the renovations they’ve done in this building,” said Toronto Sceptres defender Renata Fast, who grew up in Burlington. “It’s like a brand new building.”

TD Coliseum is now owned and operated by Oak View Group, which also developed Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, where the PWHL’s Torrent play, among other major sports and entertainment venues. In February, the PWHL announced a multi-year agreement with Oak View Group, making the firm an exclusive sales partner to help grow the league’s sales reach. That relationship — albeit with the global partnerships division of Oak View Group — could prove to be important as the league looks at potential cities and the specific venues their teams could play in.

The venue also likely won’t be as busy as in other NHL markets, with just an AHL franchise — the NHL’s New York Islanders’ minor league affiliate is moving to Hamilton for 2026-27 — and a lacrosse team as the current tenants for next season. The City of Hamilton also announced a major renovation of a local arena that will serve as the new AHL team’s practice facility, which could potentially give the PWHL a solid training option as well.

The only concern could be Hamilton syphoning support away from the league’s Toronto franchise. The Sceptres play at Coca-Cola Coliseum, just 40 miles from TD Coliseum.

Realistically, a team in Hamilton could attract more fans from Southwestern Ontario — such as Guelph or London — who might see downtown Toronto as too far a trek. And even if a Hamilton team stole some fans from Oakville or Burlington — which are about an hour commute from Toronto — the Sceptres shouldn’t have that hard of a time selling those tickets, given the demand we’ve seen for the team over three years.

—Scott Powers contributed to this report.