The Two-Minute Minor
An edition of the Penalty Box Post
Wednesday, August 30th
Kessel announces year away from U.S. National Team
In an article on NHL.com featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins' two new hires as special assistants to president of hockey operations & general manager Kyle Dubas, one of those new assistants – Gopher Women's Hockey alumna Amanda Kessel – announced her intention to take a year off from playing with the U.S. Women's National Hockey Team. Kessel indicated that the time away from Team USA will allow her to focus on her new responsibilities with the Penguins and provide time to train in preparation for the inaugural season of the new Professional Women's Hockey League.
We wish Amanda continued success in all her endeavors!!
Professional Women's Hockey League officially launches; Minnesota named as one of six locations for charter teams
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) was officially introduced yesterday, August 29, with a press release on its new website www.thepwhl.com and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). As part of that introduction, the league named the markets for its foundational first six teams: Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and the New York City area.
A number of details about the new league were also shared yesterday:
The 2023-2024 PWHL schedule will feature 24 regular season games per team, with that schedule to be announced in the coming months. Note that, in separate reporting, it was indicated that some games may occur in neutral site markets or arenas.
Each team may sign up to three free agents in a ten-day window between September 1 & 10. Following that, a 15-round draft will occur on September 18 in Toronto. Additional free agent signings will take place after the draft to fill team rosters.
Training camps will begin in November.
The league's new handle on X is @thepwhlofficial, and a new Facebook page www.facebook.com/thepwhlofficial also launched. An account for each team was created on X, with the Minnesota squad having the handle @pwhl_minnesota.
Home arenas for all six teams along with their nicknames and uniform schemes are still to be announced.
We will continue to follow league announcements, particularly with respect to updates on Gopher Women's Hockey alumnae, as they are made.
Copyright © 2023 Power Play Club, All rights reserved.
Follow the Power Play Club online at www.powerplayclub.org, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PowerPlayClubMN, or on Twitter at twitter.com/powerplayclub.
Follow the Gopher women's hockey team and all Univ. of Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics at gophersports.com. You can also find the Gopher women's hockey team on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GopherWomensHockey and on Twitter at twitter.com/GopherWHockey.