Women’s hockey: A full house in DC; please bring these touring teams to Baltimore

You would not know it from reading today’s Washington Post, but a record-breaking crowd of 17,228 watched a women’s professional hockey game at Capitol One Arena in DC on Sunday afternoon, an impressive development in the growth of the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Behind stellar defense and the goal-tending of Kayle Osborne, the New York Sirens defeated the Montreal Victoire, 2-1, in a game that ended with pushing and outright brawling at the Sirens net as the Victoire tried desperately to tie the game in the final seconds. (It’s almost guaranteed: When a goalie makes a save and there’s a scrum in the crease, pushing and shoving naturally occur and sometimes fists fly. That it happened in a PWHL game demonstrates the volatile nature of the circumstance, no matter who’s playing at the time, men or women.) In the end, the Sirens and Victoire shook hands and posed for a photograph together at center ice. Many of the players will soon head to Italy for the Winter Olympics.

The atmosphere in the arena — even on the way into the arena — was rich with anticipation as the PWHL brought its “Takeover Tour” to the nation’s capital. Women and lots of girls from local hockey clubs sported PWHL merch and, at the end of the game, the crowd broke into a chant: “We want a team!” That was a plea for the PWHL to expand its eight-team membership to include one representing Washington.

I was with a group from Baltimore and the Baltimore Stars girls teams. The thought occured that, if the “Takeover Tour” continues, maybe the league could schedule a game at the CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore. It’s not as big as Capitol One, but actually has more seating capacity for ice hockey than the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, where two PWHL teams — the Ottawa Charge and Boston Fleet — played on Jan. 11. A single game at CFG would sell out. If the league wants to establish a team in DC, they would need to draw fans from throughout Maryland and Virginia, and a game in Baltimore would create even more regional buzz.

We paid $60 for very good seats for the Sirens-Victoire at Capitol One, and that was a mid-range price; premium seats for some of the women’s games can run more than $100. In its 2024-2025 survey to determine the average cost of an NHL game, The New York Times found wide variation from city to city, but ended up with this: Between $123 and $460.42 in the United States and $257.30 and $443.57 in Canada. The high cost of attending an NHL game these days makes the reasonably-priced tickets to a PWHL game valuable to fans and families eager to see exciting, professional hockey in an arena. I hope the PWHL is here to stay — even if its ticket prices go up to boost player salaries! –and makes a stop in Baltimore along the way.