SEATTLE — On Sunday afternoon, Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena was full of women’s hockey fans.

More than 12,000 gathered to watch the Professional Women's Hockey League's Boston Fleet and the Montréal Victoire battle in a neutral-site, regular-season matchup, with the Fleet getting the exciting 3-2 shootout win.

The game took place a year, nearly to the day, that the PWHL’s inaugural season began. Now, in just its second year, the league is already looking to expand, and it’s looking to cities like Seattle.

The PWHL rose from the ashes of previous women’s hockey leagues with an ambitious eye to the future. After a year of neutral branding, the league unveiled names and jerseys for the inaugural six teams in September, and is looking to expand with two more franchises in the coming years.

Those expansion bids seem to be part of the basis for the Takeover Tour, which will see PWHL teams play in nine cities across the United States and Canada over the next few months. On Sunday, that tour kicked off in Seattle.

Joy Adiletta, a fan in attendance at the game, believes that the Takeover Tour “absolutely” has expansion in mind. “If you look at the stadiums they’re going to,” she told me ahead of the game, “I think they’re definitely testing it out.”

All of the cities — Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Quebec City, Edmonton, Buffalo, Raleigh, Detroit and St. Louis — have passionate hockey and sports fanbases. Many have NHL franchises. The PWHL even chose to exclusively host the three Canadian teams (Montréal, the Toronto Sceptres and the Ottawa Charge) in the Canadian cities.

Adiletta and her partner, Jo Narvaez-Grey, are Kraken season ticket holders and Seattle sports fans who were drawn to the PWHL during the league’s inaugural season. On Sunday, they were decked out in brand-new PWHL gear from the merchandise kiosks, where pregame lines wrapped around the queue and far into the hallways.

“It looks like they’re trying to build it right, and I really want that to be successful,” Adiletta said of the new league.

Part of that is the PWHL showcasing the incredible talent within the league. Narvaez-Grey was particularly excited to see Montréal's Marie-Philip Poulin, Canadian captain and women’s hockey legend, in action.

“If the women’s game had the same kind of setup as the men’s game, she’d probably be up there with [Wayne] Gretzky, in my opinion,” Narvaez-Grey said.

This Takeover Tour helps provide a bigger stage. Getting to play in an NHL-sized stadium is not a guaranteed experience in the PWHL — only two of the league’s teams share arenas with NHL teams, while the rest use lower-capacity stadiums.

The stadiums on tour are higher-capacity than the league typically plays in; Climate Pledge has a capacity of 17,151 for hockey. The official attendance for Sunday’s game was 12,608 people, nearly twice the PWHL's average attendance of 5,844 in 2024.

Seattle has never had a professional women’s hockey team, but Climate Pledge Arena has hosted women’s hockey before, holding a rivalry matchup between the U.S. and Canadian national teams. Stacy Hochhalter, a Montréal fan based in the Seattle area, was at that game, and showed up to Sunday’s game 30 minutes before the doors opened, wearing a Victoire sweatshirt.

“I love seeing the support that the women get, not just in Seattle but everywhere,” Hochhalter said. “A couple years ago, when the USA was playing here, it was a great turnout. People love women’s hockey here, so I really hope we get a team.”

On Sunday, Seattle did its best to welcome the PWHL. Kraken assistant coach Jessica Campbell — a former Team Canada forward who made history this season as the first female coach in the NHL — did the puck drop, walking out to roaring applause. Several Kraken players were also in attendance, and Seattle women’s sports icons Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe also made an appearance.

Victoire forward Laura Stacey, a veteran who played in the now-defunct CWHL, spoke after the game about the privilege of being able to come to places like Climate Pledge and how far they have come.

“We’ve gone through plenty of years where we’ve played in buildings, the exact same product on the ice, but not many fans in the building,” Stacey said. “It’s a pretty big honor to be able to come to places like this, rinks like this, and have 12,000 fans cheering for two teams that don’t even belong to their own city. I think it’s amazing to see.”

With just one game, Seattle fans are already dreaming of a potential expansion team, citing the city’s enthusiasm for women’s sports and the passionate Seattle Kraken fanbase that has emerged since the team’s first season in 2021. (One sign in the crowd pitched “Seattle Freeze” as a potential team name — a cheeky play on the area’s chilly reputation, hospitality-wise.)

As with any neutral-site game, there was an interesting mix of jerseys in the crowd. There were Fleet and Victoire jerseys, other PWHL jerseys and Kraken jerseys, plus a general smattering of other NHL teams, Seattle teams and women’s sports merchandise. Some fans had jerseys and merchandise from the league’s inaugural season, with neutral branding.

One such fan was Jayden Joseph, a 20-year-old who flew up from San Francisco to watch the game, as Seattle was the closest city on the tour. Joseph planned the trip soon after the tour was announced, wanting to see PWHL teams play live.

“Honestly, I don’t even care who wins, I just want to see a great game,” Joseph said before the game, wearing a maroon Montréal jersey from last season, when the team was known simply as “PWHL Montréal.”

Joseph’s wish was granted: After two first-period goals from Victoire forwards Laura Stacey and Abigail Boreen, Boston came back with a goal from Fleet forward Hannah Bilka in the second period and a game-tying goal from Susanna Tapani in the third. The game went to overtime and then to a thrilling shootout, with Boston scoring three of four goals and Montréal only getting one of four. The Fleet took the win as a result, grabbing two points, while the Victoire earned one for making it to overtime.

Sunday’s game was a riveting example of what women’s hockey can be, highlighted by the hope that players and fans hold for the future of the sport. The PWHL’s players have taken their status as role models very seriously, trying to use their influence to grow the game and inspire the next generation. In Stacey’s view, the games on this tour are a mixture of playing their best and winning the game, but also “enjoying that moment, taking in that crowd out there, and inspiring as many people as we can.”

Brandie Lueth attended the game as part of a big group from Seattle Red Hawks girls’ hockey, which her daughter Jordan is part of. Wearing a red “Hockey Mom” sweatshirt that matched her daughter’s club jersey, Lueth said that the girls were “very excited” to watch the game.

Lueth and her family went to the open practice session on Saturday, when the Fleet and Victoire met fans and signed autographs. Jordan has been playing hockey for a year, but Lueth said that there were only enough players in the program for one team per age group. (Jordan’s favorite player is Fleet captain Hilary Knight, who captains the U.S. national team. Knight did not have the best game, but received a number of hearty cheers from the crowd.)

“It’s great to see women’s hockey in the area … trying to get more girls into the sport and see that there’s a spot for them,” said Lueth.

Much of what Sunday’s game, and the tour as a whole, represents is the growth of the league and the sport in general. Fleet coach Courtney Kessel pointed out after the game how fast the league has grown since it debuted in January 2024.

“If you think about where we were one year from today, who would’ve thought that we could expand so soon,” Kessel said. “It’s an exciting time for our game, and I think you see the growth. We had an amazing audience here today, and hopefully moving forward we can continue to grow this.”

Victoire coach Kori Cheverie said postgame that part of that growth will come with showcasing the league’s talent and “the product on the ice” in front of large audiences like Sunday’s.

“These two teams, we battled hard tonight, and Boston battles hard every single time we play them, but you know that’s the type of hockey that you can expect from the PWHL,” Cheverie said.

To that point, Stacey added simply: “Women’s hockey’s here, women’s hockey’s thriving, and it’s not going anywhere.”