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Jennifer Gardiner remembers how the Canadian men and women won double hockey gold on home ice at the 2010 Olympics.
For Gardiner, a native of Surrey, B.C., there haven’t been many opportunities to see women’s hockey up close. She was just eight years old when Marie-Philip Poulin scored both goals for the Canadian women en route to a gold medal against the United States
Now she will compete on the same ice in Vancouver alongside Poulin, who is her teammate with the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire. Montreal will face the Toronto Sceptres on Jan. 8 at Rogers Arena, where the Vancouver Canucks normally play.
“It’s something I’ve always dreamed of, being able to play close to home,” Gardiner said.
She could also share the ice with Rylind MacKinnon of Cranbrook, B.C., a Sceptres defenseman who played five seasons for the University of British Columbia with U Sports.
Rogers Arena offers more than 19,000 hockey seats and tickets for this game sold out in just a few days. It is one of nine stops on a North American tour that the PWHL has dubbed the “Takeover Tour.”
With the PWHL considering expanding by up to two teams as early as next season, this could also be a test run for professional women’s hockey in British Columbia and the prospect of a PWHL Western Conference.
Jennifer Gardiner (left) will play with the Montreal Victoire on home ice in Vancouver. Teammate Cayla Barnes (right), a California native, will also have family in the audience. (Melinda Dalton/CBC)
That prospect excites Gardiner, a rookie forward who was drafted in the second round by Montreal earlier this year.
She told reporters that local girls’ hockey organizations scratched the day from their calendar so that players and staff could attend the PWHL game.
“Seeing something like this shows how important it is to continue to grow this league and spread these games across North America because people want to see it and be a part of it,” Gardiner said.
“Huge progress”
There has been no professional women’s hockey in British Columbia since the BC Breakers, a team in the former Western Women’s Hockey League (WWHL), folded in 2009. This team played in Langley.
Before that, there was the Vancouver Griffins, a team that competed in the Canadian National Women’s Hockey League until 2003 and whose roster included stars like Cammi Granato and Nancy Drolet.
But since then, the women’s and girls’ hockey scene in British Columbia has grown significantly.
In 2022, Saanichton’s Micah Zandee-Hart became the first British Columbia-born woman to make the Olympic ice hockey team.
Zandee-Hart is now captain of the PWHL’s New York Sirens and has seen many changes in BC’s women’s hockey landscape over the years.
Micah Zandee-Hart, 28, now captain of the New York Sirens, says she has watched the sport of ice hockey grow in her province since she was a teenager. (Michael Riley/PWHL)
“BC is producing a lot more players than it did when I was in high school,” said 27-year-old Zandee-Hart, who left home at 15 to play at the Okanagan Hockey Academy.
“The game continues to grow across the country, but especially in the West and I think even in the western part of the United States.”
According to BC Hockey, a year ago in the province more than 20 girls or women were invited to one of Hockey Canada’s summer camps, either at the under-18, developmental or senior level. A decade ago that number was two.
“There’s been a lot of progress in this province, especially in the last probably six, seven years to be more specific,” said Brianna Davey, vice president of member services and women’s hockey for BC Hockey.
She said her organization has focused more strategic planning on the growth of women’s hockey in B.C. in recent years.
“The [minor hockey associations] and the county associations have really embraced it and started to really grow the program at the local level.”
One of the best examples might be North Vancouver native Chloe Primerano, a 17-year-old star defender who made her senior debut this fall at the Rivalry Series.
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Primerano played against boys at the Burnaby Winter Club before playing elite girls hockey at the RINK Hockey Academy in Kelowna. Primerano graduated high school a year early and is now playing at the University of Minnesota.
“We actually see a lot of athletes from other provinces and territories coming to B.C. to play at our accredited schools,” Davey said.
“We now have a lot of great opportunities for athletes to stay in their home province.”
Primerano is one of two B.C.-born players who will compete for Canada at the U18 Women’s World Cup in January.
Another seven BC prospects were part of the Canadian development team that finished second to the United States on the Women’s Euro Hockey Tour earlier this month and could one day join the senior national team.
Arena options
Davey believes the province has the fan base for a PWHL team, noting how quickly the PWHL game sold out. She also believes this could help further grow the sport in the province.
Rogers Arena, home of the Vancouver Canucks, is one of several arenas where a B.C.-based PWHL team could play. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Beyond Rogers Arena, there are a few facilities that could theoretically host a PWHL team.
The Abbotsford Center is home to the Abbotsford Canucks of the American Hockey League and seats more than 7,000. PWHL teams in Montreal and Toronto also play at AHL rinks.
Within Vancouver, the league could look at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center on the campus of the University of British Columbia. It seats more than 7,000 and hosted some games during the 2010 Olympics.
There’s also the Langley Events Centre, which seats more than 5,200 fans and is home to the Vancouver Giants of the WHL.
A “first hockey market”
Operating a Vancouver-based PWHL team alone could be costly. The closest team would be Minnesota in the Midwestern United States, while all other teams are based much further east.
However, geography is just one of several factors the PWHL considers when considering potential expansion sites. Together with another western team, it could be the beginning of a PWHL Western Conference.
As the league continues to consider expansion, Takeover Tour games are also scheduled in other parts of the West: Seattle (Jan. 5), Denver (Jan. 12) and Edmonton (Feb. 16).
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Edmonton has a long history of professional women’s hockey, most recently in the WWHL and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.
Seattle, on the other hand, would be a natural rival for a team from Vancouver and is a city that loves women’s sports.
A Rivalry Series game between Canada and the United States in 2022 drew more than 14,500 fans to Climate Pledge Arena, the state-of-the-art rink where the NHL’s Seattle Kraken play.
Boston Fleet captain Hilary Knight played in this game. She fondly remembers how loud the building was and how it added to the emotion of the game. She is looking forward to returning with the fleet to Climate Pledge Arena, which will face the Victoire in Seattle.
Knight, a native of Sun Valley, Idaho, said there are some great “untapped” markets for women’s hockey in the West as the PWHL continues to grow.
“It’s a premier hockey market, particularly in the U.S., and has obviously proven successful in Canada,” she said. “There is no sky or ceiling to where this league could go.”
