PWHL Adds Four Teams, Builds Two Brands Entirely In-House

The Professional Women's Hockey League will open its fourth season next month with four expansion teams, doubling last year's expansion class and bringing the league to twelve franchises since its 2024 launch.

The Detroit Clutch, Hamilton Havoc, San Jose Sea Lions and Vegas Vanguards will compete as the PWHL closes out a banner 2026 for hockey following the Winter Olympics. The league began with six teams in 2024, added two for Season 3 last November, and has now doubled that expansion pace.

Amy Scheer, EVP of business operations, said the league's in-house design teams led the branding work — a capability that did not exist when the PWHL started.

"The Hamilton and Detroit logos and brands and names were done 100% in-house, no agency," Scheer told Marketing Brew. "The fact that, three years into our existence, we have that capability to create two brands from scratch, 100% in-house…I think is pretty remarkable for a young league."

Creative agency Doubleday & Cartwright, which helped build the brand of WNBA champions the Golden State Valkyries, worked with internal PWHL teams on the Vanguard and Sea Lions logos.

How did the league build the brands?

The process starts with in-depth research into each team's market, sometimes before the market is officially named, according to Ali Koviak, head of brand and marketing. Her team had existing insight into Detroit, Michigan, and Hamilton, Ontario, because the PWHL had already played special "Takeover Tour" games in both cities.

Names and colors came first, inspired by "distinguishing characteristics" and city legacies, Koviak said:

• The Detroit Clutch honors the Motor City's automotive industry with black-and-chrome coloring.
• The Hamilton Havoc logo features a peregrine falcon — the city's official bird — spreading its wings from within the "V" in "Havoc," representing "strength, durability, and unyielding resolve" for a steel-mill city.
• The San Jose Sea Lions carry a bright, coastal look and a hidden link to women's sports history: the San Francisco Sea Lions of the 1946 West Coast Negro Baseball Association included Toni Stone, the first woman to play regularly in a major men's pro baseball league.
• The Vegas Vanguards name nods to both the city and the league's own origins.

For the Vanguards, "that name rose to the top immediately," Koviak said. "We were really inspired by the meaning of vanguards being leaders, pioneers, leading the way, and not only the parallels that that has to the desert, the American West, the city of Vegas, but also to the PWHL, a league that was born by leaders in hockey and women…who made it happen."

What does this change for the league's growth push?

With only three seasons behind it, the PWHL lacks the cultural cachet of more established US women's leagues. Scheer's answer is distribution and fan access: the streaming deal with YouTube, the national US TV deal with Scripps Sports, and the Takeover Tour, which brings games to markets without their own teams.

The league's fandom currently sits at about 65% women and 35% men, with particular strength among families and older women, Scheer said. The next growth lever is player-led content and personal brands — a playbook she watched work at the WNBA, where she spent part of her career.

"What has worked so well for the WNBA...is women as creators, and I really do think that the NIL space in college has significantly propelled the WNBA," Scheer said. "You've got such great players doing unbelievable content…so there's so many fun things going on for all different audiences in the WNBA."

Young stars such as Sea Lions defender Laila Edwards now enter the league out of college with Olympic experience and exposure. League executives ran personal-branding presentations for players from Hockey Canada and USA Hockey earlier this year to push the shift along — though, as Scheer put it, "the players also have to put themselves out there."

Fans get a role too. "We give them the brand, we give them the logo, and then we get out of the way," Scheer said. How those twelve fan bases animate four new identities will shape whether Season 4 converts hockey's Olympic momentum into durable league growth.