PWHL Ottawa home opener sell-out to set North American attendance record

The hockey arena at TD Place is home to Ottawa’s PWHL team. Ottawa, Ont. Nov. 15, 2023. (Tyler Fleming / CTV News Ottawa).

The sold out home opener for Ottawa's Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) team will set a North American attendance record for pro women's hockey.

The team said Wednesday that tickets for the Jan. 2 game against Montreal had already exceeded initial capacity and upper bowl seats at The Arena at TD Place were being sold to expand capacity to 7,510.

On Sunday, the Ticketmaster page for the game said that tickets were sold out.

PWHL spokesperson Paul Krotz told CTV News Ottawa that the game will break an attendance record.

"There are already over 5,000 tickets sold which means the home opener on Jan. 2 will set a new a single game record for a North American professional women's hockey game," Krotz said in an email on Thursday.

The previous record was set this past February, when the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association had 4,301 fans at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ont.

Some arenas where the PWHL plays have even greater capacity and could push attendance records even higher as the inaugural season progresses. St. Paul, Minn.'s Xcel Energy Centre, for example, has an official capacity of 17,954.

Ottawa is one of the original six teams in the PWHL, alongside Toronto, Montreal, Minnesota, Boston and New York.

The very first regular season game in the PWHL takes place New Year's Day, when Toronto hosts New York at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, which has a capacity of 2,600.