For the first time since 2015, the Bruins are the only professional hockey team in Boston. Until this year, there were two major hockey teams in Boston. The aforementioned Bruins, who play at the TD Garden, which has a capacity north of 19,000, and the Boston Pride, one of seven teams in the first professional women’s hockey league, the Premier Hockey Federation. The Pride played their games at Warrior Ice Arena, a venue that fits just over 500 people and is often used for Bruins practices.
The PHF was bought out by the Mark Walter Group and BJK Enterprises in July of last year, and since then, plans have been announced for a new women’s hockey league, aptly named the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The PWHL confirmed in October 2023 that Boston would be getting a new team and would be moving out of Warrior. This was a big move, seeing as the new venue, the Tsongas Center, had a capacity of almost 6,500, which, if you’re keeping track, is about 6,000 more than before. This is a huge step up; bringing in more fans is always better, especially for a team and sport that are still somewhat on the rise, but unfortunately for women’s hockey fans living in Boston, the new location is in Lowell, a 45-minute drive from Warrior.
Anyone living in the Boston area who was excited to go to Pride games could take public transportation to get there, as it is right along the routes of both the 86 and 64 buses. Now, fans from the Boston area will have to drive or take the commuter rail to get to the Tsongas Center. There is an argument to be made that, because the new arena is on the UMass Lowell campus, more college students will attend and the games will still be full. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the team will be further away from its previous location and its fans in a way comparable to the ongoing case to move the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas. Some solace can be found in every game the team plays being broadcast on NESN, but a NESN Plus subscription actually costs more per month than a ticket to a live game.
Location is just one issue people have with the new league. There is also the fact that none of the teams have names yet. They are all just playing as PWHL Boston or PWHL Ottawa. Most cities with new teams already have a team, so why not just stick with those? The Pride, the Whitecaps, and the Six were all already team names that could easily be reused. This change makes the new league feel less like a step forward and more like a temporary solution.
Overall, while there are some positives to a new women’s hockey league, most of them are outweighed by the negatives, at least in Boston. The combination of a new set of players, a new arena that’s 30 miles away, and a team with no name makes one wonder why they changed the league at all.
