{"id":576792,"date":"2026-05-17T00:54:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T00:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/576792\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T00:54:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T00:54:26","slug":"pwhl-expanding-to-san-jose-per-reports-after-adding-hamilton-las-vegas-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/576792\/","title":{"rendered":"PWHL expanding to San Jose, per reports, after adding Hamilton, Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Jose is reportedly set to become the latest city to get a PWHL expansion franchise<\/a>, with an official announcement by the league coming as soon as next week.<\/p>\n

The PWHL officially announced expansion franchises<\/a> for both Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, on Wednesday, and multiple reports indicated that San Jose is next<\/a>, which would give the fledgling three-year-old league 12 teams, including four in the Pacific Time Zone. The expansion teams, including recently added Detroit<\/a>, would begin play in the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

The exact date for the PWHL\u2019s announcement regarding a new team in San Jose is unclear. Although paperwork still needs to be signed, The Hockey News speculated<\/a> that an official announcement could come next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The league\u2019s best-of-five championship series, the Walter Cup between Montreal and Ottawa, begins on Thursday and continues with games every other day. An official announcement in San Jose, if it happens on Tuesday, would come between Game 3 and, if necessary, Game 4.<\/p>\n

San Jose\u2019s PWHL team is expected to play<\/a> at the 17,435-seat SAP Center, also home of the NHL\u2019s San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n

Besides Las Vegas, Hamilton, Montreal and Ottawa, the PWHL has teams in Boston, Minnesota, New York, Seattle, Toronto, Detroit and Vancouver.<\/p>\n

News of the league\u2019s expansion to San Jose<\/a> began last week, as the PWHL was in the midst of increasing its membership from eight to up to 12 teams. The league began with six teams in 2024, and added the Seattle Torrent and Vancouver Goldeneyes before the 2025-26 season. Those two teams, playing in large arenas, led the PWHL in average attendance<\/a> this past season.<\/p>\n

San Jose would be the first California-based team in the league, which officially added Detroit as a ninth team earlier this month. The new teams in Detroit, Hamilton and Las Vegas do not yet have nicknames, although they have official colors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need to geographically expand past the northeast and the north in general,\u201d Amy Scheer, PWHL executive vice president of business operations, recently told The Associated Press. \u201cSo that\u2019s part of the plan as we start to branch out: What are the right markets that make sense to obviously become a little bit more geographically diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sharks would not own San Jose\u2019s PWHL team. All league teams have separate front offices but are owned and operated by TWG Global,<\/a> whose sports portfolio also includes the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n

SAP Center could be a busy place for hockey in the winter and spring months. This past year, the PWHL\u2019s regular season ran from late November to late April, with each team playing 30 games, including 15 at home. The Sharks will play 42 home games in 2026-27 from September to April<\/a> as the NHL expands from an 82-game regular season to 84.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re stoked, and we\u2019re proud of how far we\u2019ve come in a short time,\u201d Scheer said of the league\u2019s rapid expansion. \u201cBut, the work starts now, right? It\u2019s wonderful to make announcements. But that\u2019s really when the real work comes, and the proof is in the pudding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose is reportedly set to become the latest city to get a PWHL expansion franchise, with an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[599,12440,5,1326,4,1767,5401,519,168,5306,5305,4230,1780],"class_list":["post-576792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose-sharks","tag-detroit","tag-hamilton","tag-hockey","tag-las-vegas","tag-nhl","tag-pwhl","tag-pwhl-expansion","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sanjose","tag-sanjosesharks","tag-sap-center","tag-sharks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116587191529991026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}