The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) recently announced they'll be adding two new teams next season and league-wide attendance has now surpassed the 1 million mark. What’s been the key to this still-young league’s huge success? Jayna Hefford, the Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations for the PWHL and a four-time Olympic gold medalist with Team Canada, tells us how the business strategy behind the league helped propel it beyond a successful launch and into part of what’s becoming a cultural movement.    

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Key moments this episode: 

2:02 – Jayna's overall assessment of the PWHL’s second season so far 

3:36 – What surprised Jayna about the make-up of the fans 

4:23 – The strategy to sustain fan excitement for the second season 

5:20 – How a mandate from leadership helped enable some of the league's innovations 

7:53 – Why has this iteration of professional woman’s hockey gained traction? 

10:16 – How does the PWHL attract talent? 

11:25 – How viewership has changed since the league started and how that's helped growth 

12:43 – The role the PWHL plays in wider societal change 

15:08 – A look ahead to next season 

16:32 – What the success of the PWHL means personally to Jayna