Boston Fleet sells out first game at TD Garden, expected to set U.S. attendance record for PWHL
The Boston Fleet has sold out their first-ever game at TD Garden, the team announced Thursday. It's expected to set a U.S. attendance record for the Professional Women's Hockey League. The Fleet will face the Montréal Victoire on April 11 at 7 p.m.
"Boston is the ultimate sports city, and seeing this kind of support shows that women's professional sports belong on the biggest stages. Our players and our fans have earned this together, and we can't wait to experience a packed TD Garden on April 11," Fleet General Manager Danielle Marmer said in a statement.
The Fleet normally play their home games at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell. The sold-out Garden game will be the team's first contest in that venue.
With more than 17,800 fans in the stands, it would become the second-highest-attended game in the league's history and most for a game in the U.S.
The PWHL record was set in Montreal in 2024 with 21,105 fans.
The Fleet said that league attendance has jumped 17% since the start of this season.
"Boston has consistently shown up for women's sports, and there's an even deeper sense of pride in welcoming gold‑medal Olympians back home as part of the Boston Fleet. This roster includes some of the best in the world, and the atmosphere inside TD Garden will represent the quality on the ice," said Glen Thornborough, the president of TD Garden and COO of the Boston Bruins.
The Fleet had three players on Team USA at the Olympics in Italy - Megan Keller, Aerin Frankel, and Haley Winn. Keller scored the winning goal in overtime against Canada in the gold medal game.
"Coming back from the Olympics, the amount of support that our league has gotten, we felt certainly in our first game back," Keller told WBZ-TV earlier this week. "We can't wait to get back in front of our own fans."
You can watch the Fleet face the Victoire on April 11 on TV 38 in the Boston area.
Another PWHL team, the New York Sirens, sold out their first-ever game at Madison Square Garden. They'll face the Seattle Torrent on April 4. The Fleet will face the Sirens on Thursday night
