Girls on ice: PWHL’s third season aligns with youth hockey surge

The Seattle Kraken have been teaching kids to play hockey since they joined the NHL in 2021

In the coming months, they're bracing for another boom in youth registrations

This time, it's a girls' world. The Seattle Torrent will drop the puck on their inaugural season in the Professional Women's Hockey League on November 20th

And a surge in young girls wanting to get on the ice with stick and puck will surely follow

as it has in every city that PWHL now plays in. Kraken youth coach Julia Takasuka led a rink full of young skaters in a tri-hockey for free class in October

And that's a preview of what's to come. Takasuka grew up in the Seattle area when there were just a handful of girls playing the sport

And she started by playing on boys teams. I was either the only one or one of one or two on the team playing

And then I did switch to a girls team when I was in middle school

So I was pretty lucky there. There were kind of three girls teams in the entire state

and they were three different age groups. And one of them played in a co-ed league

and two of them played against other girls up in Canada. So I was going to Canada every weekend to play

Girls in Washington no longer have to make that two- or three-hour drive to the Great White North

There are now teams and leagues in every age group up to 18 years old

Girls hockey is hitting record numbers across North America. USA hockey youth registrations grew by more than 5% across all female age groups in 2024, with 4,784 new members

In Canada, where hockey is the national sport, participation is up 30% in the last three years, with more than 70,000 new players

Takasuka believes those numbers will keep rising with the PWHL expansion allowing more girls to see a path to college and the professional ranks They going to be able to see their future selves right You can see that role model and have someone to root

for and have a team to root for and be like, okay, this is where I want to go. And so you can see that

whole track right in front of you instead of having to just kind of make it up as you go along

Minnesota Frost star Claire Buterak has been in the PWHL since the league started in 2023

As a Minnesota native, the sport has always been available to her, even at a young age

But being a role model and signing autographs for the next generation is something new

When I was growing up, I didn't have professional women. I had the national team and that was really cool

But now it's like seeing the little girls in line just be like, I want to be in the PWHL

It's just really cool to hear and it's like a full circle moment, I think, for all of us. The PWHL is all the better for it as girls hockey grows and more specialize in the sport

Budarak has coached kids in Minnesota and is already seeing it. Just the talent level from where it was five years ago to the 12-year-olds and 14-year-olds that I coach

It's crazy, right? There's so much development happening. It's really cool to think about when these young players get to be my age and our age

the league and the level of pace and play is going to be so much faster

Youth organizers have two big hurdles to jump to keep growing the game

The cost of a full set of kids hockey gear can range from $400 to over $1,000

There's also a shortage of ice rinks and time set aside for young kids, even in the biggest hockey markets

The Kraken Community Iceplex has three full ice sheets and the doors are open from 6 a.m. to midnight daily

But Takasuka said they still have to get creative with scheduling to accommodate demand

The PWHL is expecting to set attendance and viewership records during the upcoming season, meaning more young girls will surely see their future

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis