The PWHL announced Tuesday an expansion franchise in San Jose will begin play for the 2026-27 season alongside the NHL's Sharks at SAP Center.
On “Sharks Pregame Live,” San Jose insider Tara Slone joins the broadcast to discuss the second season of the PWHL and its importance in bringing the women’s game to the next level.
Sheng Peng is a regular contributor to NBC Sports California’s Sharks coverage. You can read more of his coverage on , sharing ice with the NHL’s San Jose Sharks and AHL’s San Jose Barracuda -- along with all the youth and adult league teams at Sharks Ice, the largest indoor ice skating facility west of the Mississippi River.
“That's more proof that San Jose is definitely a hockey town,” Sharks president Jonathan Becher said at a press conference at SAP Center on Tuesday afternoon. “There's another city that likes to call themselves Hockey City, USA. I think we're coming for that title. ” The unnamed San Jose team will begin play in the 2026-27 season, joining three other expansion squads: Hamilton, Detroit and Las Vegas.
The PWHL will become a 12-team league. The 2026-27 schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but based on the 2025-26 campaign, PWHL San Jose should debut in late November. PWHL San Jose follows the success of pro women’s basketball and soccer in the Bay Area in recent years with the Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA and Bay FC of the NWSL.
“Maybe a little bit of FOMO when you see what's going on here in the West Coast, right? ” PWHL Senior Vice President of Business Operations Amy Scheer said.
“You've done a wonderful job welcoming the Valkyries and Ballhalla, and you've got Bay FC and the 90-minute drum beat and the Bridge Brigade. So much fun going on here for sports already, and we are so happy to be part of that environment. ” PWHL San Jose will play at SAP Center with Tech CU Arena as a back-up location, in case of conflicts with the massive renovations at SAP Center in the coming offseasons.
“San Jose shows up for women's sports. We showed up for Bay FC at PayPal Park, where their inaugural home opener drew a sell-out crowd of 18,000 people, a Bay Area women's professional soccer attendance record,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said.
“We showed up for the Golden State Valkyries, who brought their first-ever WNBA playoff game right here to the SAP Center. ”“Their deposits are already over the roof. I'm not supposed to tell you the number, but it's well above their expectations,” Becher said. Scheer said there already have been over 1,000 season-ticket deposits put down, an impressive number considering the website has only been open since Tuesday morning.
“We are ready to show up in orange, blue and white for San Jose at the Shark Tank,” Mahan said. , the team’s official colors are “inspired by the San Jose flag and reflecting the Bay Area’s optimistic energy. Orange is also a nod to the Sharks and the region’s historic orange groves, while blue evokes the beauty of California’s ocean coastline and sky. ”“They intentionally wanted to give the team a little bit of its own identity,” Becher said.
Does that eliminate the Hammerheads, popular online, as a nickname? The Hammerheads obviously are a nod to the Sharks, but also to former San Jose mayor Susan Hammer, who helped bring the Sharks to the city of San Jose. Also, keep in mind that PWHL San Jose, like the rest of the league’s teams, is owned and operated by Mark and Kimbra Walter.
Mark Walter is best known to sports fans as the majority owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Lakers, and it makes sense that their teams would have their own distinct identities. PWHL Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Jayna Hefford is leading the search for a San Jose GM. The PWHL Draft is on June 17 in Detroit, and before that, there will be some type of talent dispersal that will stock expansion rosters, including PWHL San Jose.
But that’s for another day. Today was history.
“I'm lost for words, because as a young girl growing up in South San Jose, there was no professional women's sports, team sports,” 1991 and 1999 Women’s World Cup champion and Bay FC co-founder Brandi Chastain said at the press conference, before joking, “Team sports was really something that I loved, and I did not have access to that, so I thought I would be a 49er. ” “I also grew up here in the Bay Area and cannot have imagined that this moment would be here,” 1992 Olympic figure skating gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi said.
“A professional women's hockey team -- growing up there wasn't even the Sharks yet, so this is incredible and exciting, not just for the hockey fans, but especially for young girls out there who can really now see a new pathway for whatever can be in sports. ”
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