After being known only by their team colors and markets, the Professional Women’s Hockey League has arrived at names for all six of its teams. Minnesota’s will be known as the Frost.
“I love it,” said Kendall Coyne Schofield, a veteran wing for Minnesota’s team who played a large role in creating the league.
The six PWHL teams have retained their team colors from last season, and the Frost are purple.
The team names are: Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montréal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres.
“It’s an exciting day, a historical day in PWHL history, hockey history, sport history,” Coyne Schofield said. “I’m excited for the fan base in Minnesota, I’m excited for the league and I’m excited for hockey fans around the world who can now associate a team name and a logo with the greatest professional women’s hockey league in the world.”
Minnesota won the inaugural Walter Cup as the league’s champion and last week hired Melissa Caruso as its general manager. Natalie Darwitz, the team’s first GM, was fired days after the team won the championship.
The logo is a capital “F” on a purple or lavender background, the letter’s font featuring the sharp, pointed tips on icicles.
“Such a strong, bold, intense logo that I think a lot of people are excited about, including the players,” Coyne Schofield said. “I think the word that comes to mind is ‘excitement.’ ”
Redesigned jerseys, created in collaboration with league partner Bauer, will be unveiled “either at the end of October, beginning of November,” PWHL VP of business operations Amy Scheel said. The 2024-25 season is scheduled to start sometime before Jan. 1, PWHL senior vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said last week.
“When we launch what the jerseys look like, you were will immediately be able to buy replica jerseys, and you will be able to buy them with player names on them, as well,” Scheel said, adding that it’s unlikely fans will be able to buy authentic jerseys.
“I think in Year 3 you’ll see we’ll come out with an authentics program,” she said.
The PWHL partnered with creative agency Flower Shop to develop the new team identities, and used fan feedback through social media posts, said Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the PWHL vice president of brand and marketing who oversaw the project.
Players, Coyne Schofield said, were not involved in the process.
The names also had to pass intellectual property in Canada and the U.S. None of them are those used by the same markets that had teams in the PWHL’s precursor, the Premier Hockey Federation, through 2023. Those included the Minnesota Whitecaps, Boston Pride, Montreal Force, Metropolitan (New York) Riveters and Toronto Six.
“Over the course of the last nine months, we went over hundreds upon hundreds of names, and those were six of them that were in the queue that just didn’t make the final cut,” Scheel said. “So, I don’t know that there’s any ‘new’ versus ‘old.’ They’re all part of a singular process that got us to today.”
As they did last season, the Frost will play home games at Xcel Energy Center this season.