The PWHL: the Walter Cup and a bigger league.

Status in October 2026

The 2026 Walter Cup Final finished on 20 May 2026 with the Montreal Victoire as champions. The 2026-27 regular season has not begun. According to the Canadian Press, it opens on 5 December 2026 and runs to 18 April 2027, so there is no 2027 champion and no standings yet.

How the league began

ESPN reports that the PWHL was established in 2023 by Billie Jean King and Mark Walter, that Walter's group bought out the rival Premier Hockey Federation, and that the league began play on 1 January 2024 with six teams. Wikipedia dates the announcement of a single professional women's league in North America to 30 June 2023, by the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises. Some reports put the partnership earlier: Sports Illustrated covered a 2022 letter of intent between King, Walter and the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association. ESPN gives 2023 as the founding year, and that is the date we use.

The first game, on 1 January 2024 at Toronto's Mattamy Athletic Centre, was a 4-0 win for New York over Toronto. The PWHL's recap says Ella Shelton scored the league's first goal and Corinne Schroeder made 29 saves.

The Walter Cup

The championship trophy was announced on 4 April 2024. ESPN says it is named for the Walter family, the league's main financial backers, and that the name was proposed by Billie Jean King, a member of the PWHL's advisory board. The PWHL says it was made by Tiffany & Co. in sterling silver.

The Canadian Press notes that these first three postseasons, 2024 to 2026, each used a four-team, two-round format.

2026: Montreal Victoire

Montreal beat Ottawa three games to one. The PWHL's notebook gives the series:

In Game 4, according to The Ice Garden and AP, Abby Roque scored twice, Maggie Flaherty and Lina Ljungblom once each, and Ann-Renee Desbiens made 23 saves for the shutout. It was Montreal's first title and the first Walter Cup won by a Canadian team. In the semifinal Montreal had knocked out two-time champion Minnesota in five games.

Other firsts from the 2026 playoffs, as the PWHL records them:

• Montreal became the first team to finish first in the regular season and also win the Walter Cup. It won 22 of its 30 regular-season games and set a record 16-game point streak.
• Marie-Philip Poulin won the Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award, tying for the playoff points lead with eight in nine games.
• Maggie Flaherty became the first player to win three Walter Cups.
• Hayley Scamurra became the first player to win the Walter Cup and Olympic gold in the same season.

Boston University and AP reports said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie was the first woman head coach to win the Walter Cup. The PWHL put attendance at 113,087 across the 13 playoff games, with a playoff record of 16,894 at Game 3, and 1,229,584 across 133 regular-season games.

2025 and 2024: Minnesota

Minnesota won the first two Walter Cups. In 2024 it had finished fourth in the regular season, came back from 2-0 down against top seed Toronto, and beat Boston 3-0 in the deciding fifth game of the final. In 2025 the Frost beat Ottawa 3-1 for back-to-back titles, with Liz Schepers scoring the overtime winner in the clinching game.

The 2026-27 season: 12 teams and two conferences

The league adds four expansion clubs, in Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas and San Jose, and splits into two conferences:

The Canadian Press describes the new format:

• Each team plays 30 games: 18 within its conference and 12 against the other, 180 games in all.
• Eight teams make the playoffs, the top four in each conference.
• The first round is best of three, the conference finals best of five, and the Walter Cup Final best of five.
• First-place teams choose their first-round opponent.

The league's first All-Star event is set for 7 March 2027 in Toronto, at Scotiabank Arena according to Just Women's Sports.

Checking in the PWHL

Body checking is allowed in the PWHL, within limits. AP reported in February 2025 that checking had been banned in earlier women's professional leagues and that players overwhelmingly asked for it when the PWHL launched. In AP's description, hits are allowed when both players are moving in the same direction, while open-ice hits and checks on players with their backs turned are banned. The Hockey News wrote in July 2026 that the league has allowed legal checking since its start, excluding north-south open-ice hits and head contact. We have not read the PWHL rulebook itself. The women's hockey page compares the rules at other levels.

Watching the PWHL

For 2026-27 the PWHL announced Scripps Sports as its first season-long national U.S. television partner. ION has a Saturday Game of the Week and is the exclusive U.S. home of the Walter Cup Finals, and the free Scripps Sports Network stream carries two games a week. The league says every game streams on its YouTube channel and thePWHL.com for viewers in the U.S. and outside Canada. We did not find the 2026-27 Canadian broadcasters in the sources we read. See watching hockey for more.