PWHL Officially Arrives In San Jose With Launch Event

On Tuesday, the Professional Women’s Hockey League held its official launch event for the PWHL San Jose franchise.

The newest PWHL team is now the league’s 12th member and the fourth expansion franchise in 2026. PWHL San Jose will play at the SAP Center, home of the San Jose Sharks, and is already accepting season ticket membership deposits. According to Sharks president Jonathan Becher, the number of early-deposit spots has already surpassed expectations.

“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 in a media scrum following the event. “This is going to be great for hockey and great for San Jose.”

Senior Vice President of Business Operations for the PWHL Amy Scheer was on hand to help with the launch event. Scheer told reporters after the event that bringing a team to San Jose has been in the works for a long time.

“When you look at where you want to be, and you look at how this market has supported women’s sports, and how the Valkyries have just blossomed, and now Bay FC, you want to be part of that,” Scheer said. “You look at the hockey community here, you look at what the Sharks have done, you look at the facilities, right? When we talk about where we want our players to play, we want them to have great infrastructure. We want them to have a great practice facility and a first-class arena, and San Jose has all those things. It’s a great place to live. The support of the fans. It has all the things we want for our league and for our players.”

While sharing an arena with the San Jose Sharks won’t be easy for the first couple of seasons, as the SAP Center undergoes a reimagination. Both Becher and Scheer acknowledged that the upgrades coming to the building will bring challenges for PWHL San Jose.

“It was part of the conversation with Jonathan and James, for sure. We understand that when the Sharks’ season is over, construction starts, and then we will move our games to Tech CU [Arena],” Scheer said. We understood that as long as construction was going on, that was going to be the process, but we felt it was well worth the compromise to come here and have a team in San Jose.”

Becher told reporters that they hope to avoid double game days at the SAP Center, but they know it is possible, as the San Jose Barracuda played here before moving to Tech CU Arena.

“I think some of the details of where they’re going to be here and there, we will unveil later on this summer and next year, but yes, they’ll have their own identity over at Sharks Ice and share some facilities at [SAP Center],” Becher said. “This will be an NHL first building. We have 100+ other events there; it’ll be a bit of a Jenga game. But we did it a few years ago when the Barracuda played in this building, so we know we can do it again. There will probably be the occasional double day, but we’ll try to avoid those when we can, and we’ll figure it out.”

Details of the PWHL San Jose team name haven’t been released, but the league is working toward a shortlist of names. Becher announced that Hammerheads is on that list, but he is not part of the decision-making process.

The San Jose Sharks will support the new San Jose hockey franchise, but, officially, the PWHL club will be its own entity. Becher explained that the NHL club will support the newest women’s franchise as it gets off the ground.

“Officially, they’re a tenant in our building, and so they’re self-run and operate, but we’ll help them out quite a bit. Help them get off the ground,” Becher said. “They’re going to use some of our employees for certain things, some of our part-time labor as well. It’s not an arm’s length difference, yet they are a separate organization making their own decisions.”

More details on what the front office will look like and the expansion rules will be released in the near future. PWHL San Jose is here, and it will begin in December 2026.