{"id":579474,"date":"2026-05-20T12:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/579474\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:57:16","slug":"pwhl-announces-san-jose-expansion-how-the-san-jose-sharks-were-involved-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/579474\/","title":{"rendered":"PWHL announces San Jose expansion; how the San Jose Sharks were involved"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 Jonathan Becher watched Olympic gold-medal-winning hockey player Kendall Coyne Schofield become the first woman to compete<\/a> in the NHL All-Star Game\u2019s<\/a> skills competition at SAP Center in 2019.<\/p>\n

While the event itself<\/a> was historic, Becher specifically remembers the sold-out crowd\u2019s raucous reaction.<\/p>\n

RELATED: With PWHL expansion, the Bay Area is now the undisputed capital of women\u2019s pro sports<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI turned and looked at the people I was sitting next to,\u201d Becher, president of Sharks Sports & Entertainment<\/a>, said, alluding to Sharks owner Hasso Plattner and former general manager Doug Wilson, \u201cand I said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get a women\u2019s hockey team here in San Jose.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Over seven years and multiple inquiries by SS&E later, San Jose has its own professional women\u2019s team in the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League, with the league officially announcing Tuesday that SAP Center will host the league\u2019s 12th team,<\/a> starting this fall.<\/p>\n

The announcement at the Shark Tank included speeches from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and retired local sports icons in figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and soccer star Brandi Chastain, both Olympic gold medalists and Bay Area natives. Sharks legend and Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Thornton also attended but did not speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, we believe that women\u2019s sports is not a hiccup, it\u2019s not a charity, it\u2019s not just OK, we\u2019ll try it one time,\u201d Chastain said. \u201cNo, we have believed in women\u2019s sports for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an eye on attracting more corporate sponsors<\/a> and growing its television audiences, the PWHL has added teams in Detroit, Las Vegas, and Hamilton, Ontario, bringing the total to 12 just this month.<\/p>\n

The PWHL, which is owned and operated by TWG Global,<\/a> felt San Jose would be a viable market for women\u2019s hockey, partly because of the city\u2019s mostly strong support for the NHL\u2019s Sharks and, more recently, the AHL\u2019s Barracuda.<\/p>\n

But the league might not have considered San Jose and the Bay Area for expansion if the region had not already shown its affinity for women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

The WNBA\u2019s Golden State Valkyries sold out all 22 regular-season home games during their inaugural season at Chase Center in 2025 and set WNBA records for average attendance<\/a> (18,064) and total attendance (397,408). Bay FC, which began play in the NWSL in 2024, ranked fourth in average attendance last season (14,823).<\/p>\n

The PWHL this season set a new record,<\/a> averaging over 9,200 fans per game.<\/p>\n

The PWHL does not yet have a nickname for the San Jose team, and it remains unclear when a general manager will be in place, although expansion teams in Detroit and Las Vegas recently announced GM hires.<\/a><\/p>\n

The San Jose team\u2019s official colors are blue, orange, and white<\/a>, and the PWHL began accepting $50 deposits for season tickets on Tuesday morning. By midday Tuesday, Scheer said close to 2,000 had been received, exceeding expectations.<\/p>\n

\"JonathanJonathan Becher, president of Sharks Sports & Entertainment, and Amy Scheer, Senior Vice President of Business Operations for the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League, laugh during a press conference announcing San Jose\u2019s Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League team in San Jose at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at where you want to be, and you look at how this market has supported women\u2019s sports, and how the Valkyries have just blossomed, and now Bay FC, you want to be part of that,\u201d said Amy Scheer, PWHL executive vice president of business operations. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to see women celebrated, and to see the stadiums full. It was definitely a factor in wanting to come here and be part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PWHL also looked at what San Jose had to offer in terms of playing at an NHL Arena, with a spacious practice facility at Sharks Ice already home to the Sharks\u2019 and Barracuda\u2019s training facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at the hockey community here, you look at what the Sharks have done, you look at the facilities,\u201d Scheer said. \u201cWhen we talk about where we want our players to play, we want them to have great infrastructure, we want them to have a great practice facility, we want them to have a first-class arena, and San Jose has all those things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great place to live, the support of the fans, it has all the things we want for our league and for our players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becher said the Sharks had previously inquired about helping to bring a women\u2019s hockey team to San Jose, and years ago reached out to the now-defunct NWHL. Becher said they were told the league was focused mainly on the Northeast U.S. and Eastern Canada and not yet interested in California expansion.<\/p>\n

Becher said the Sharks kept asking the PWHL, which began play in 2024, about getting a team in San Jose, including before the league expanded from its original six teams to eight prior to the 2025-26 season, when it added Seattle and Vancouver.<\/p>\n

The PWHL now has four teams in the Pacific Time Zone, expanding its footprint westward with San Jose being the first California-based team.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year we\u2019ve said, let us know when you\u2019re ready for California,\u201d Becher said. \u201cWe think we can support it. When they expanded by two teams last year, we raised our hands and put in a bid, and (the league said) we\u2019re not quite ready for California yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when this expansion came up, we thought we had a really good shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jr.Jr. Sharks hockey players stand on stage with S.J. Sharkie, San Jose Sharks mascot, after a press conference where Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League officially announces a team in San Jose at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n

Becher said San Jose\u2019s official inclusion in the PWHL came together just recently.<\/p>\n

Reports indicated that the PWHL has been eyeing Los Angeles as the league\u2019s point of entry into California. But San Jose\u2019s bid \u2014 led by the Sharks \u2013 was stronger, as the PWHL whittled its list of bidders to a smaller group that they wanted to have final four conversations with.<\/p>\n

Submitting a bid, Becher said, involved filling out a long questionnaire and clarifying any questions that the league may have. PWHL officials also toured the SAP Center and Sharks Ice, both of which are undergoing renovations.<\/p>\n

Everything materialized in rapid succession after that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis came together pretty quickly,\u201d Becher said. \u201cIt\u2019s four years of discussion and then two and a half weeks of actually trying to figure out the logistics to get this done. So, when people say it came together quickly, it came together really quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becher said arranging the arena\u2019s schedule to accommodate the Sharks, the PWHL team, plus concerts at the 33-year-old arena will be a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be a bit of a Jenga game,\u201d Becher said, \u201cbut we did it a few years ago when the Barracuda played in this building, so we know we can do that. There will probably be the occasional (doubleheader), but we\u2019ll try to avoid those when we can, and we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 Jonathan Becher watched Olympic gold-medal-winning hockey player Kendall Coyne Schofield become the first woman to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5127],"tags":[3136,5,4,1767,5401,519,168,5306,5305,4230,1780],"class_list":["post-579474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose-sharks","tag-amy-scheer","tag-hockey","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\/116607021701694184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579474","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=579474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}