Two years ago, the first ever Professional Women’s Hockey League Walter Cup championship game was held at the Tsongas Center in Massachusetts. One year and a 52% increase in fan attendance later, the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota hosted the second championship. Both years, the Minnesota Frost emerged victorious, becoming the only team to ever hoist the Walter Cup. Will this year be any different?
As we enter the last month of the regular season, the Boston Fleet, Montreal Victoire, and Minnesota Frost have clinched three of the four playoff spots. The fourth and final playoff spot will most likely go to the Ottawa Charge, who sit in fifth place with 33 points—only one point behind the Toronto Scepters as of early April. With incredibly close standings this year, it could only take one game to end a team’s entire season.
The Boston Fleet became the fastest team in the league’s three-year history to punch their ticket to the playoffs with a 4–2 win on the road over Minnesota on March 29th. Even more exciting, the New York Times has crunched the numbers—taking into account offensive and defensive ratings, strength of schedule and home ice—and they concluded that the Fleet have the second best chance of winning the Walter Cup. That is, if they’re able to keep up this level of play.
In an article by the Boston Globe, it was noted that the Fleet have been having an up-and-down season, flying out of the gates before sputtering around the Olympics, and picking it back up as the season comes to a close. Despite their recent hot stretch, there is much to clean up before the postseason. Most pressing, it seems, is their power play. Boston hasn’t scored on a power play for 29 consecutive games, holding a power play percentage of 13.4, the third-worst in the league. Head Coach Kris Sparre told the Boston Globe that he believes his players are “thinking too much” and he wants “their creativity to take over a little bit more.” Another key point is playing as a team. We saw the Fleet disconnect a bit in the middle of the season, meaning their game wasn’t flowing as well as it has been recently. The only way for them to win the championship is to work together, they can’t rely solely on individual talent.
The Fleet are competing to be the 1-seed in the playoffs, which would earn them home-ice advantage and the ability to choose their semifinal opponent, a unique aspect of the PWHL tournament. But they have a difficult closing schedule lined up for the last month of the season, taking on Montreal twice, as well as Minnesota and Ottawa. Despite this, Boston forward Abbie Newhook remains focused and optimistic, telling the Boston Globe that as long as they “go in hard and play all three periods … the results will come.”
This article also appears in our April 2026 print edition.
