Australian Women's Ice Hockey League

Lore & Background

The AWIHL was preceded by two seasons of a Showcase Series in 2006 and 2007, which tested the feasibility of a national league. The official formation of the AWIHL occurred in 2007, with four founding teams: Adelaide Assassins, Brisbane Goannas, Melbourne Dragons, and Sydney Sirens. The league's inaugural champion was awarded the West Lakes Trophy. In the early 2010s, teams aligned with Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) counterparts, leading to the Melbourne Dragons becoming Melbourne Ice, Adelaide Assassins becoming Adelaide Adrenaline, and Sydney Sirens becoming North Star Sirens. The league expanded in August 2018 with the addition of the Perth Inferno. The AWIHL was forced to cancel two consecutive seasons due to COVID-19 outbreaks and border restrictions between 2020 and 2022. After a two-year hiatus, the league returned for the 2022–23 season. As of 2026, the AWIHL has six active teams, including four founding members and two expansion teams.

Reader's Guide

The AWIHL is significant as Australia's first national women's ice hockey league, providing a structured competition for elite female players. Its history reflects growth from a four-team Showcase Series to a six-team league spanning five states. The league has faced challenges, including financial constraints and a COVID-19 hiatus, but has maintained continuity. The most successful team is Melbourne Ice, with nine championship titles. The league's champion is awarded the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy, while the premier receives The Gower Memorial Shield. The AWIHL has also served as a development pathway, with the Australian Women's Tier 2 Show Case Series acting as a feeder league. Two AWIHL teams, Sydney Sirens and Melbourne Ice, were ranked in Australasia's Best Sporting Team list in 2019. Future expansion has been mooted, including into New Zealand, but no active bids exist.

Did You Know?

• The AWIHL was established in 2005 as Australia's first women's national ice hockey league.
• The most successful team is Melbourne Ice (women) with nine championship titles.
• The current champion (2025–26) is the Perth Inferno, their first title.

The Road from Collapse to Creation

The story of the PWHL begins in the aftermath of the Canadian Women's Hockey League's abrupt 2019 dissolution. That CWHL had operated on a non-profit model for twelve seasons (2007 to 2019), offering stipends and bonuses but never true salaries, and ultimately lacked the financial stability to survive. In the wake of that collapse, hundreds of prominent players—including Canadian and American Olympians—formed the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association. Rather than simply joining existing competitions, the PWHPA members boycotted all leagues while staging exhibition tournaments to demonstrate the caliber of women's hockey and attract corporate and NHL-team sponsorships. Their advocacy culminated in a 2022 partnership with the Mark Walter Group (led by Dodgers owner Mark Walter) and Billie Jean King Enterprises. The following year, those business partners purchased the assets of the Premier Hockey Federation, which had ceased operations, and the PWHL was formally announced in August 2023. The league remains wholly owned by the Mark Walter Group.

A Season That Rewrote the Record Books

The PWHL's inaugural campaign, which kicked off on January 1, 2024, with Toronto hosting New York at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, immediately demonstrated the sport's explosive commercial potential. New York's Ella Shelton scored the league's first goal in a 4-0 victory, and the broadcast drew 2.9 million Canadian viewers—outperforming the NHL's Winter Classic that same day. Attendance records were shattered repeatedly throughout the season: 8,318 at Ottawa's opening home game at TD Place Arena, 13,316 at Minnesota's debut at the Xcel Energy Center, 19,285 at the Battle on Bay Street in Toronto, and a then-record 21,105 at the Duel at the Top in Montreal's Bell Centre. The first draft, held in September 2023 at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, featured fifteen rounds and ninety selections from 286 eligible players, with Minnesota selecting Taylor Heise first overall. The league's first three signings—Emily Clark, Brianne Jenner, and Emerance Maschmeyer—all joined Ottawa during a ten-day free agency window.

A Rulebook Built for Spectacle

While the PWHL borrows its structural framework from the NHL, it introduces several distinctive innovations that set it apart from both men's hockey and other women's competitions. The most notable is a 3-2-1-0 points system: three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime or shootout victory, one for an overtime or shootout loss, and zero for a regulation defeat. Once a team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, its accumulated regular-season points feed into a Gold Plan that determines the order of the top pick in the following entry draft. Another signature rule is the jailbreak—a short-handed goal that immediately terminates the opposing team's penalty. Perhaps most significantly, the PWHL permits bodychecking, a feature absent from most other women's leagues and IIHF-sanctioned games, though the league enforces stricter restrictions than the NHL does. These choices collectively signal a league designed to emphasize physicality, strategic depth, and competitive tension.

Reaching Fans Across Borders

The PWHL's broadcast strategy reflects its dual commitment to North American markets and international accessibility. In the United States, games air on regional sports networks based in each city that hosts a team, embedding the league into local sports culture. Canadian viewers have a broader array of options, with coverage spread across CBC/Radio-Canada, TSN, its French-language affiliate RDS, Amazon Prime Video, and Sportsnet. For the rest of the world, the league streams its games on YouTube, with the notable exception of Canada, which is covered by its domestic broadcasters. The international reach extends further through Nova Sport, which carries select PWHL matches in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With twelve teams split between seven U.S. cities and five Canadian locations, the league's multi-platform distribution ensures that a fan in Prague can watch the same action as one in Boston, cementing women's professional hockey as a genuinely transnational spectacle.