A year ago, when the Professional Women’s Hockey League was preparing to launch its inaugural season, few knew what to expect.
Women’s hockey leagues have come and gone over the years, and Jayna Hefford knows that better than most. She played in a few of those leagues over a Hall of Fame career, and served as commissioner of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League when it folded more than five years ago.
But when the six-team PWHL launched in January, the public reception of the new league exceeded expectations.
It showed through merchandise sales, which the league significantly underestimated, to attendance, including a record-breaking crowd of more than 21,000 that sold out the Bell Centre in Montreal in just minutes.
“We always believed it to be true,” said Hefford, who is the PWHL’s senior vice president of hockey operations. “We had a vision for it. But to see it happen as …