Purple Reign

With the Sharks season now only a few days away the all eyes turn toeards the upcoming crossover night with PWHL San Jose which will not only see Laila Edwards drop the puck but many other surprisesIt's another example of how much the Sharks have done to help make PWHL San Jose feel like they belong in the Bay Area as we get ever more closer to their opening night

The countdown to Denmark continues with our team previews as this time its Team Austria

Austria won Division 1A last year to earn promotion to the top tier but their results don't paint me or Lady with full confidence going up with the best of the best

Its fair to say last season a lot of teams overloaded their netminders as some of the league's best netminders were given the lion's share as most teams while they have a star starting netminder they don't really have a rock solid backup to rely on when the gping gets tough

Exciting times are ahead for our league as we now have want we've longed for a national telly deal in the United States as we have signed a deal with Scripps who got their first taste of PDUB action last seasonAlso the YouTube streams will stay which is very important in making the league accessible for fans across the world and something I will forever fight to keep

While we've known for some time when training camps were set to begin we now have the full details on preseason with the 12 teams spread across Las Vegas, Boston, Hamilton, Toronto and San JoseThe problem though is it means that the 2026/27 season isn't going to start until December which is the worse possible time to start a new regular season and for people like me who find the festive period a nightmare

We move on now to the second leg of the 202/27 Women's Euro Hockey Tour which heads to Finland where the pressure will be on the host nation to put what happened at the Winter Games behind them

There's no denying that I have high praise for Eric Bouchard especially after all the work he put in to Team Italy during this Olympic cycle so I was surprised that he had been overlooked despite there being eight coaching vacancies that needed to be filled

After all the turmoil we had back in the summer with regards to Austria's national team we can now finally breathe an almighty sigh of relief as the two sides have now come to terms on a deal for better working conditionsWhile we don't know what's in the deal all that matters is Austria can now focus on their biggest tournament yet in a few weeks time

The countdown to Denmark continues with our team previews as this time its Team Germany

The Germans benefit the most from the new format as everyone except for Team USA practically shares a border with them

With the PWHL thriving since its launch in 2023 it has also paved the way for agencies to start taking women's hockey more seriously as we take a look at who the big players are and how their signing their clientele