The PWHL slides into its fourth season with four new teams

When the puck drops for the fourth season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) next month, it’ll be with four more teams than last year.

The league played its first games in 2024 with six teams, then added another two in time for the start of Season 3 last November. Now, to wrap up hockey’s banner year in 2026, it only seems fitting that the PWHL is doubling the number of expansion teams from last year, with the Detroit Clutch, Hamilton Havoc, San Jose Sea Lions, and Vegas Vanguards all slated to compete.

The branding of those four expansion teams—including the development of their names, logos, and color palettes—was largely led by the league’s in-house design teams, according to Amy Scheer, EVP of business operations.

“The Hamilton and Detroit logos and brands and names were done 100% in-house, no agency,” she 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.”

In addition to expanding into new cities across the US and Canada, league execs have further plans to continue to capitalize on the rise of hockey after this year’s Winter Olympics.

Mood board

The process for branding PWHL expansion teams begins with in-depth research into the team markets, sometimes before they’re even officially named, according to Ali Koviak, head of brand and marketing for the league. Her team had some insights into expansion markets Detroit, Michigan, and Hamilton, Ontario, since the PWHL has played special “Takeover Tour” games in those cities.

The names and colors typically come first, Koviak told us, and they were all inspired by “distinguishing characteristics” and the legacies of the cities. The Detroit Clutch, for example, pays homage to the Motor City’s automotive industry with its name and black-and-chrome coloring, while the Vegas Vanguards’ name nods to the roots of both the city and the league itself, Koviak said.

In the case of the Vanguards, “that name rose to the top immediately,” she 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.”

The logos, too, have deeper meaning. The Hamilton Havoc’s is a peregrine falcon, the official bird of the city, spreading its wings from within the “V” in “Havoc” in a show of strength that represents “strength, durability, and unyielding resolve” for a city known for its steel mills, according to the league.

In the Bay Area, the San Jose Sea Lions brand has a modern, bright look that evokes the energy of the coast, and a name with a hidden connection to women’s sports history: the San Francisco Sea Lions, a team that competed in the West Coast Negro Baseball Association in 1946, included Toni Stone, the first woman to play regularly in a major men’s pro baseball league.

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

Icing on the cake

The PWHL has an engaged and growing fanbase, but with just three seasons under its belt, the young league doesn’t yet have quite the same cultural cachet as some of the more established pro women’s leagues in the US.

To help accelerate that growth, Scheer said her team will continue to lean into fan access, like the PWHL’s streaming deal with YouTube, national US TV deal with Scripps Sports, and the Takeover Tour, which brings games to markets with no teams of their own.

Currently, the league’s fandom sits at about 65% women and 35% men, and it’s especially popular among families and older women, Scheer told us. The trick to bringing more people into the fold, she said, lies with player-led content and the development of their personal brands.

“What has worked so well for the WNBA, having spent a portion of my career there, 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.”

With young stars like Sea Lions defender Laila Edwards entering the league out of college with Olympic experience and exposure, the PWHL is poised to follow the W’s lead, “but the players also have to put themselves out there,” Scheer said. League execs are trying to encourage them to do so with initiatives like presentations on personal branding to players from Hockey Canada and USA Hockey earlier this year, she added.

Some of the growth potential is also in the hands of the fans, Scheer told us.

“The fun part is, because our fans are so engaged, to see how they take our names and our logos and bring them to life,” she said. “We give them the brand, we give them the logo, and then we get out of the way.”