The Premier Hockey Federation will welcome its seventh franchise to the league for the 2022-2023 season in Montreal.
The team name has not been officially announced yet.
“This is a very exciting time for the PHF and the growth of professional women’s hockey,” said Reagan Carey, PHF Commissioner in a league press release. “The city of Montreal and province of Quebec have a rich hockey history that the PHF is proud to officially be a part of.”
The franchise named its inaugural leadership group, featuring president Kevin Raphaël and vice president Emmanuel Anderson. Montreal’s franchise will train and practice at Centre 21.02, touted as a “high-performance hockey centre for elite women.” The team, however, will play home games during the 2022-2023 season barnstorming arenas across Quebec “to help raise the PHF’s profile and showcase professional women’s hockey to greater audiences.”
According toRaphaël, it’s an exciting moment for women’s hockey in Quebec. Professional women’s hockey has not been played in Quebec since the Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded in 2019. At that time, Les Canadiennes de Montréal were the winningest team in league history.
“Professional women’s hockey is back in Montreal, and Emmanuel and I are very excited to work with the PHF to help grow the women’s game across the entire province of Quebec,” said Raphaël. “We look forward to building a team with strong community partnerships and talented athletes who are ready to make a real difference on and off the ice. This is just the beginning for what is going to be a very special season for everyone.”
Originally, the PHF had planned two expansion cities for the coming season. Providence, Rhode Island had long been rumored to be the location of the other franchise before the deal fell through. Still, the league got Montreal, which they’d been targeting for more than a year.
“Montreal has been at the top of our priority list for the last couple of years, for obvious reasons,” John Boynton, the chairman of the PHF Board of Governors said in January. “You’d normally want to get there as soon as possible. And so it will happen next season. Montreal is obviously one of the best, most important hockey markets in North America and the PHF absolutely has to be there.”
A new name and coaching staff for Montreal’s PHF franchise will be announced in the coming weeks. Montreal also needs to fill out their roster using the league’s new $750,000 salary cap per team. Montreal is the second PHF expansion team in Canada after the Toronto Six joined the league in 2020-2021.
