Montreal Victoire and PWHL are thriving. Here’s how they can keep it up
After a thrilling 3-2 overtime win at Place Bell in Laval, Montreal Victoire staff and players stood on the ice at the end of the final home game of the regular season and thanked a cheering sold-out crowd for making the year a success.
A beaming Marie-Philip Poulin, who had missed 10 games because of an injury, didn’t hold back when she took the mic.
“I want to tell you that since the beginning of the season, I know, we all know, that we have the best fans in the league,” the captain said. “There is no question.”
Looking around the arena, she described being on the sidelines watching devoted fans showing up and filling the seats “game after game.”
“That’s the energy we want,” Poulin said. “That’s the energy we need, because the series is coming. We have one goal on our minds: We want to win the Walter Cup, and that happens with you.”
Hockey has the city in a chokehold, but the Victoire has made its own name for itself aside from the Canadiens and Laval Rocket — and part of that is due to the team’s strength on the ice.
Even with Poulin sidelined for a portion of the team’s third season, the Victoire finished atop the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s standings. The club is in its third playoffs in three years, with hopes of winning the Walter Cup for the first time.
The Victoire tied up its best-of-five semifinal series 1-1 on Tuesday night, when Poulin scored in the third overtime to give Montreal a 1-0 win over the Minnesota Frost in Game 2. The series now shifts to Minnesota for Game 3 on Thursday and Game 4 on Friday. Game 5, if necessary, is slated for Place Bell on Monday at 7 p.m.
Moshe Lander, a sports economist at Concordia University, said part of the Victoire’s success is that while it “hasn’t won a championship in the first two years, they also haven’t been bottom feeders, either.” Big names — such as three-time Olympic gold medallist Poulin — “draw just as much as they do in the NHL.”
“In Montreal, where you’re worried about competing with the Montreal Canadiens, especially because the Montreal Canadiens are on the upswing these days … you don’t have to win a championship, but you better be competitive, or that’s the type of thing that can hurt you,” Lander said in a recent interview with The Gazette.
Victoire fan Camille Gendron, who has been to a few games at Place Bell since the beginning of January, said: “We love to see women succeed in their sport.
“It’s really fun to have more diversity in the world of sports. That’s why we come to watch it,” she said.
The PWHL reported “historic growth” in its third season, attracting 1,116,497 fans — a 28 per cent jump over the previous season’s attendance and a 71 per cent increase since the inaugural season.
Lander noted that while spectators are primarily women and children, there were more men joining the PWHL crowd in the third year.
“It’s a contrast with a market at a Montreal Canadiens game — a very different market, the role of alcohol, the role of gambling,” Lander explained. “So I think there is room for the two to coexist merely because, for now at least, they’re after two very different markets.”
The inclusive culture at the PWHL games, including Pride Nights, also helps set the league apart, according to Lander. Being part of the LGBTQ+ community is embraced on and off the ice.
“They have the ability to carve it out,” he said.
Affordability ‘a huge draw’ compared with NHL
The Victoire is offering competitive and exciting hockey, but at lower costs, and “that’s a huge draw,” Lander said.
“I think that in the men’s game, prices have really gone out of reach for the average fan,” he said.
“I’m not just talking about the Montreal Canadiens; I’m talking the entirety of the NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA.”
Season ticket prices for 14 home games aren’t listed directly on the Victoire’s website, which encourages fans to contact the organization directly. For the third season, a single half-season ticket started as low as $241.50 and went as high as $723.50 for seven games at Place Bell. These prices include all taxes and fees.
Comparatively, the Montreal Canadiens also offer half-season tickets, starting at $3,391 for a pair of upper-level seats for 23 games at the Bell Centre. A pair of tickets in the reds begins at $7,199 and costs a minimum of $8,542 in Club Desjardins. These prices don’t include taxes, or the waiting list’s registration deposit and annual fee.
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There is also a stark contrast for post-season tickets. For the opening round of playoffs, the price tag for a Victoire ticket is $49.50 to $140 at Place Bell.
Meanwhile, Habs season-ticket holders were able to secure their seats for $130 to $676 per first-round game, though the prices increase by round. The cost is more expensive for the public and tends to jump on resale sites. For Round 2, single-game tickets on SeatGeek started at $638 and went as high as $1,846 for the best seat possible.
Victoire fan Annie Lesage attended a few games during the inaugural season before opting to buy season tickets for the next two years. She often brings her son and daughter.
It’s important to “encourage women in hockey,” and a professional league was a long time coming, she said.
“It’s a good way of making things happen, I think,” Lesage said of her season tickets. “A way to support the sport.”
As the Victoire continues to make headway in the hockey-crazed city, Lander noted anecdotally he also sees more of the team’s jerseys around town.
“There’s a merchandise aspect to it here that when the teams are picking good names, good colours, you kind of get to start from scratch,” he said.
The PWHL reported that in-arena sales of gear doubled across the league compared with the 2024-25 season, though it doesn’t provide exact numbers. Online merchandise sales grew by more than 50 per cent season over season, including a 190 per cent jump in sales right after the Olympics compared with the same period in 2025.
“You’re buying into a vibe and you’re buying into a product,” Lander said.
Overexpansion a concern
The league has eight teams after adding the Vancouver Goldeneyes and the Seattle Torrent this season. As the PWHL continues to grow and tests out new potential markets with initiatives like the Takeover Tour, Lander warned against overexpansion.
“If you expand too quickly, you need to be able to fill the roster spots for all of that expansion,” he said. “And so, by its very nature, you risk diluting the product.”
Adding more teams could make it hard for some of them to build a strong fan base if the franchises repeatedly fail to make the playoffs, according to Lander.
In the current league, the top four teams make it to the playoffs. With additional teams, the probability of any team winning the Walter Cup within a five-year period “starts to shrink, too.”
“It’s almost better to keep it small,” he said.
Lander noted that it’s not fair to compare the PWHL, which is in its third season, with the NHL of today. The latter has more than a century of experience under its belt — and that includes mistakes like “massive amounts of franchise relocation, financial crises and overexpansion.”
“Ease up a little bit,” he said of comparing the two leagues. “And remember, it’s not even the first incarnation of (the PWHL). That type of thing has to be allowed for.”
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