Takeover Tour: Breakdown, Locations, & Possible Future Expansion Locations

A few weeks ago, the PWHL announced its Takeover Tour schedule and locations for the 2025-2026 season. If you’re not familiar with it, the Takeover Tour is the series of neutral site games held across the USA and Canada throughout the PWHL season. The games are primarily a chance for the PWHL to gain exposure and allow the players and the league to be showcased in front of fans that don’t currently have a team in their state or region, but the league also seems to be using these games as an opportunity to scout out potential future expansion locations, which makes it even more enjoyable to break down and look at where the games are scheduled for this season! 

Last season’s Takeover Tour was a big success, with the league noting that the tour, “welcomed fans from all 50 U.S. states and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, while an estimated 80% of attendees experienced their first-ever PWHL game.” That success, and the overall growth of the league, led to another even larger Takeover Tour being planned for this season. 

The Takeover Tour has expanded each season, and this season, we will see a total of 16 games across 11 different locations. Among those locations are seven that have not been a part of the Takeover Tour in the past: Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Halifax, Hamilton, Washington, D.C. and Winnipeg. That also means that tour is returning to four locations that have hosted games in the past: Denver, Detroit, Edmonton and Québec City.  

Detroit is the only city that is hosting a Takeover Tour game for the third straight season. In addition, five cities are hosting two games this season: Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton and Halifax. Previously, each city only hosted one game per season, so this is a new development as well. Those facts alone make these cities front-runners, in my mind at least, for future rounds of expansion. Testing Detroit out for the third straight season, and testing these other cities out twice in one season, sure feels like an audition of sorts to see what kind of returning fan base these markets will be able to bring in, which could be a good measuring stick for the league to determine if there is enough fan support to bring full time teams to these cities. 

I personally really want to see an expansion team in Québec City, as they have been vocal about wanting a team, and they seem primed and ready to be a fantastic home city for a PWHL team. Outside of that, I think all of the locations chosen have some interesting attributes that could make them good places for future PWHL franchises. If the league wants to continue balancing locations between the U.S. and Canada, that could impact the choices that are made, especially if they continue choosing teams in similar geographic areas of each country (as they did with Seattle and Vancouver). Additional teams in the Midwest or West (of both the U.S. and Canada) could make some sense from a travel perspective, but that won’t be the only thing taken into consideration when choosing locations.  

Another fun aspect of the Takeover Tour is allowing players from around these cities or states a chance to play professionally in front of large groups of friends and family, and we have seen a number of special moments happen already for players in or near their hometowns.  Here are a few homecomings that will happen during the Takeover Tour games this year:

• Halifax: Jill Saulnier (Boston Fleet) is a Halifax native, so she will get to play in her hometown; in addition, Allie Munroe and Blayre Turnbull (both playing for the Toronto Sceptres) are both from Nova Scotia.
• Chicago: Taylor House (Ottawa Charge) and Kendall Coyne Schofield (Minnesota Frost) are both Illinois natives
• Edmonton: Emerance Maschmeyer (Vancouver Goldeneyes) is from Alberta
• Dallas: Hannah Bilka (Seattle Torrent) and Allyson Simpson (New York Sirens) are both from Texas
• Calgary: Jess Kondas (Toronto Sceptres) is from Calgary

Are you planning to head to one (or more) of the Takeover Tour games? Whether in person or watching online/on TV, which location are you most excited to see host a PWHL game? What are your thoughts on which of these cities might be the front runners for future expansion teams? Let me know in the comments!