The Professional Women’s Hockey League is coming to Detroit. The league said Tuesday it will expand to the city for the 2026-27 season, with PWHL Detroit set to play home games at Little Caesars Arena.
Detroit-based Ally Financial will be the team’s inaugural partner, and the jerseys will carry an exclusive Ally patch on the chest. The league also said Detroit will host the 2026 PWHL Awards Ceremony on June 16 and the 2026 PWHL Draft the next day at Fox Theatre, where fans can buy tickets to attend.
The move gives the league a market that has already proved it can draw. Detroit hosted the PWHL’s first-ever neutral-site game in 2024 at Little Caesars Arena, and 13,736 fans turned out. Since then, the city has hosted four PWHL games over three seasons, including a March 16, 2025 crowd of 14,288 that set a then-U.S. arena attendance record for women’s hockey and a Little Caesars Arena high of 15,938 at the city’s last Takeover Tour game on March 28, 2026.
That record helps explain why Detroit was chosen now, and why the league is putting two marquee events there before the new team even takes the ice. PWHL Detroit’s primary colors will be black and silver, with white as a secondary color and red as an accent, while the permanent name and logo will come later. The new club joins the league’s eight current markets: Boston, Minnesota, Montréal, New York, Ottawa, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver.
The league operates under a single-entity ownership structure under TWG Global, and Detroit’s bid was led by Ilitch Sports + Entertainment, the business arm behind the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers and Little Caesars Arena operators. The league said the effort began with an initial investment by Mike and Marian Ilitch and was strengthened by Ilitch Companies’ long-running commitment to hockey. For a city that has already shown up for women’s hockey, the next test is no longer whether Detroit can fill the building. It is how fast a new team can turn that support into a home of its own.
