Across the league, PWHL Fans Are Building Something New

The chatty, amiable hoard exits the train station and ambles down the sleepy, late-Sunday morning streets of Newark in March, decked out in teal-tinged team gear and charm bracelets and hats. There exists no trace of antagonism or the dread that hangs before a battle. It is a makeshift parade to a gigantic party.

Now, inside The Prudential Center, the home of the PWHL’s New York Sirens—that’s loud. (In a good way.) And it gets louder when the puck drops, thanks to the record 8,264 turnout. The Sirens, in the middle of a five-game winless streak, overwhelm the Ottawa Charge early, leaping to a 3-0 lead. The home team is vying for that all-important playoff position.

The energy never wanes. The Sunday matinee is a blur of waving signs and “Wee-Woo” chants and cheers. The 6-2 Sirens win, led by Sarah Fillier’s three-point performance and Taylor Girard’s two goals, is a tonic for the dying hours of the weekend and the week of obligations that lies ahead.

“I think it was exciting for us,” Sirens captain Micah Zandee-Hart said after the game. “Obviously, we wanted to have a game like that too, I think our fans that have been at every game deserve that. We felt it from them today, and it was cool to experience that with them.”

This scene is not an outlier. Go to any PWHL game. The crowd is usually some form of radiant.

‘It’s Really Special Here.’

Danielle Kingsbury and her partner, Kevin Hanse, are Sirens season ticket holders. The North Jersey pair attended their first PWHL game in 2024. They fell in love with the players’ abilities, the league’s inclusivity, and the future of women’s hockey.

It has been quite the ride. They’ve traveled throughout the continent to watch the Sirens. At Prudential Center, they’ve sounded the siren to start the game, rode the Zambonis, and even walked out on the ice with a player for the final home game.

Something bigger happened between these events and learning the rules and watching the hockey videos and—this is not a misprint—Hanse familiarizing himself with the PWHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Hanse, who works in a law office, and Kingsbury, a high school teacher, became part of a community, one that can show their love for a team and play a role in their success.

On Sunday, Hanse and Kingsbury were ready. He sported a scaly, aquamarine Sirens suit made from material that would repulse your local haberdasher. Kingsbury wore a Sirens jersey covered in autographs and hair-dyed teal.

As Hanse waited to lead chants and wave homemade signs, including an I Heart NY sign with sirens replacing the famed image, Kingsbury navigated the crowd at Prudential Center moments before the puck drop on that early March afternoon. It took a while. She kept saying hello to fans.

“It’s really special here,” says Kingsbury, who greeted a new PWHL fan with a Wee-Woo charm bracelet, a pom-pom, and a sign during the team’s pre-game skate. “The friendliness here is unmatched.”

Kingsbury was a wonderful host. But, jittery with anticipation, she joined the queue of fans waiting to get in. Gametime awaited.

'I Can Bring My Whole Self to a PWHL Game.'

It doesn’t matter whether they are new to following sports, like Kingsbury and Hanse, or a veteran of one-too-many GOAT arguments. PWHL fandom hits deeper. Many have been waiting for this, whether they know it or not.

Let’s go to Toronto. Debbie Harrison, a sixty-something retiree, loved hockey growing up but never got to see anyone like her play as a pro. Too many attempts at a woman’s hockey league started and failed. Then, the PWHL arrived and stayed. She is now a social media celebrity of sorts, thanks to her signs and her ornate homemade costumes. Harrison even prompted Crayola to create a PWHL-inspired color.

As a fan, Harrison can help the PWHL flourish. “It’s giving so many women the opportunity to do what they love, and I’m thrilled to be a part of that in my own way,” she told Toronto Life. “I wish I could have grown up with this league and been able to emulate these impressive players, but it’s better late than never.”

Falling in love with the PWHL, and the Ottawa team that launched with the league in 2024, inspired Sali Lafrenie to dig into women’s hockey’s buried past. She also unearthed a career path.

“Being a fan of the PWHL has given me a new professional sense of direction and helped me realize that I want to become a sports archivist and historian,” she wrote in a 2024 essay. “But it doesn't stop there. More work needs to be done by historians, archivists, and sports fans like myself to ensure that the stories of women and racialized people in sports are not left out.” 

Mel Brown, a lifelong hockey fan, experienced something new during their initial visit to a PWHL game. “For the first time in my life, I felt at home at a professional sporting event,” Brown, who is queer, wrote in an essay for CBC. “Beyond that, even—I felt wanted.”

Jeff Moores, a Frost fan from Minneapolis, knows what that’s like. He spent his childhood at various sporting events feeling like an outsider. The rapture others felt at a Twins game or hockey rinks eluded him. Fandom felt like a four-word letter word, ugly and egotistic.

In 2024, spurred by inexpensive tickets, Moores and his partner began attending PWHL Minnesota games. What hooked him wasn’t a memorable play or even the back-to-back PWHL Walter Cups the Frost have won. It was the joyful mix of people in one space enjoying themselves as themselves. One game galvanized his fandom, a group outing. Moores’ friend, who brought her 12-year-daughter, was overcome by women being part of a full-blown sports arena spectacle.

“I feel like I can bring my whole self to a PWHL game,” Moores told the PWHL.com. “And I can expect that the other fans are going to respect me, and I’m going to respect them, and we’re all going to have a good time.”

All Ages Welcome

Somehow amid the Prudential Center’s friendly din, the 13-month-old remains docile and focused on the action below. Shifra’s dad, Seth Kennedy, is undoubtedly pleased. He wore a Sirens jersey when Shifra was born. (That photo was eventually signed by that year’s Sirens squad.) Today, Kennedy wears a Sirens yarmulke. Shifra fashions a blue Sirens top made by her mom, Naomi. She’s here today, too.

“It’s all positive,” Seth Kennedy says. As if to prove his point, when Maddi Wheeler scores the Sirens’ first goal barely seven minutes into the game, he rocks Shifra to the pulsating beats of Alicia Keys on “Empire State of Mind.”

“To have a women’s league that she can grow up with is a really cool thing,” says Kennedy, a friend of Hanse and Kingbury’s, who sits in their row. Plus, Shifra gets to behold the bonding power of sports. “You’re seeing the same people all the time,” he adds. “This team has brought people together.”

A PWHL game is a perfect place for newcomers. “I’ve hardly seen any gatekeeping behavior found elsewhere,” says Daniel Assel, a Vancouver Goldeneyes season ticketholder. “The inclusive behavior is certainly worth celebrating.”

“This community and crowd are supportive of everyone,” says Aryeh Ness, who brought eight friends to the Sirens game. Among the gaggle is Tara Shrier, of Highland Park, NJ, who is at her first PWHL game—and has the certificate to prove it.

“People are very happy to be here,” Ness observes. And, yes, Shrier was among them. The whole scene—including the music, the cheering, and the friendship bracelets (a station was up and running)—delighted Shrier. “I’m thinking of people I’d take to (a future) game.”

Liz Corey of New Paltz, NY, was introduced to the Sirens by best friend Margaret Stanne. You’re going to love it, Stanne promised. At Sunday’s game, Corey was among the converted, wearing a Sirens jersey plus a jean jacket festooned with related pins and patches. “The vibe of the fans” swayed Corey, who was there with Stanne. “I made friends.”

Ness and his wife have a future guest in mind. They hope to have children to bring to a Sirens game. If they have a girl, “she can see herself reflected” on the ice.

The Journey Continues

“WEE-WOO!”

“LET’S GO SIRENS!”

“We have extra ear plugs—no joke, for real,” Kingsbury tells the strangers sitting nearby.

Danielle and Kevin—journalistic formalities feel out of place with these two—have extra everything. While Kevin breaks down everything about the Sirens and the PWHL to a new fan next to him, Danielle is a one-person cheering section. Their evangelism for Sirens and the PWHL is inexhaustible. The signs they brought to prompt chants are double-sided, so more people can participate in the joyful noise.

“Sports is an improv performance,” Hanse explains. “The fans are part of that performance.”

The couple has a spreadsheet of merch and signs, bringing ones they think will be relevant for a particular game. “Does that make us superfans or just nerds?” Kevin mused. “Is there a difference?”

Either way, they fit in. “When you look at sports communities, there’s an underlying toxicity that exists,” Kevin says. Not at the PWHL. Or as Corey puts it: “You can come here and let go and forget about the real world for a while. You get to be goofy, dance, and have fun.”

It’s also exciting. “Anything can happen,” Danielle says. The Sirens’ once comfortable lead shrinks to a goal, then rises like radioactive yeast in the third period as the Sirens score three unanswered goals. So does the celebration. The off switch to their enthusiasm is broken. Danielle urges Kevin to stop educating the fan next to him.

“It’s better when you’re cheering,” Danielle says. “Thank you, dear.”

The game ends in a decisive Sirens victory and continued domestic bliss. Being a PWHL fan has no defined timeline. It is about being part of a journey. Corey does not mind if the Sirens lose, because being at a game is such a rush. Danielle initially loved “seeing strong women doing cool things.” But her first time at the Prudential Center, during the 2024 pride game, Daneille encountered Martin Brodeur’s “Salute” statue outside the arena. The New Jersey Devils’ legend’s quote stirred her: “After all those years, I could always look up in the stands and make out the same faces. I knew exactly who I was playing for.” She was all in.

Lafrenie, who played with only two Black teammates during her time in youth sports, had a life-altering moment when she first saw forward Sarah Nurse on TV, then with Toronto. There’s a pro hockey player who looks like me.

Moores is very happy about the Frost’s budding championship pedigree, but what strikes him is that fans—one million strong and counting during this history making 2025-26 season—are rooting for the league to succeed, not just their team.

Everyone is in this together.