A League of Their Own: Women’s Sports in Minnesota

In the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to get more into sports, specifically women’s sports. This all started back in 2023, when the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) was announced. As a Canadian and Minnesotan, I can’t help but love the sport, and I wanted to support not only hockey, but celebrate the incredible female athletes surrounding it as well. My love for hockey has since bled into other women's sports, and I’m very grateful for that! It wasn’t until this past year or so that I learned Minnesota is an incredible place to be a women’s sports fan! Why Minnesota? We have a lot of Minnesota-based women sports teams, and an even bigger fan base. We of course have a PWHL team, called the Minnesota Frost, who have won 2 out of the 3 championships held by the league. I went to see one of their games against Boston back in March, and the energy in the arena during games is unmatched. The PWHL regularly does takeover tours, where they have teams play in different arenas across the U.S and Canada, which is a great opportunity to see where they can add expansion teams to. Their highest game attendance reached 19 thousand fans in Vancouver, and 14k in Denver! Their ticket prices are also a lot more reasonable than an NHL game, and all of their games are streamed accessibly through youtube, so if you are ever looking to go to or watch a professional hockey game in the Cities, I’d totally recommend catching a Frost game.  We also have a WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) team called the Minnesota Lynx! I got into basketball during the 2025 NCAA finals. I’ve been a huge fan of Paige Bueckers for a while before that, so I wanted to watch her play for UCONN and realized I enjoyed watching the sport. The Minnesota Lynx are phenomenal, we have a new Rookie this year, Olivia Miles, and she has already broken a record in the league! We also have Napheesa Collier. She was the 1st overall pick back in 2019, and She currently has 2 olympic gold medals! She also helped create the player owned organization called Unrivaled with Breanna Stewart, who plays for the New York Liberty.  The Lynx have won 4 championships, so if you are tired of being disappointed by the Timberwolves during playoff season, I’d suggest you tune in to watch a couple Lynx games! The WNBA recently made a deal with Amazon, so you can watch Women’s Basketball games every Thursday on Prime video.  We also have some smaller women’s leagues in Minnesota that deserve some love too! The Women’s Elite Rugby (WEF) league has a team called the TC Geminis, we also have a soccer league called the USL W, and our team is called the Minnesota Aurora! Another bonus of Minnesota is that we have a sports bar in Minneapolis completely dedicated to showcasing women’s sports! It’s called a bar of their own, and it was named best local sports bar by USA Today! Inspiring the next generation Women’s Sports is an incredible important thing to support, not only because we live in a society where men’s sport are more mainstream and deemed as more “important”, but also because the athletes apart of these leagues are teaching the new generation of athletes to go after what they want, and to not be afraid to speak up for themselves and others.  Last year, nearing the end of the WNBA Playoffs, a couple players came out about the negligence from the league. They were also concerned about salaries, and almost ended up going on strike before the 2026 season if their demands were not answered. Thankfully, they reached an agreement back in March, which started players salaries at around 300k. If it weren’t for the actions and bravery of the player, this probably wouldn’t have happened. If you need a reason to like the Minnesota Lynx, Napheesa, our star player, was a big forefront for this movement, and I couldn’t be more proud to be a lynx fan! The women's sports community, while it has its ups and downs, is inclusive and uplifting. There are many openly queer players in the leagues, and it's refreshing and beautiful. To see athletes that are so unapologetically themselves, and overall, I am extremely proud to be a women’s sports fan, and I hope after this article I convinced you to check it out! During the summers, I teach children sports, and to know that the young girls have sports leagues and athletes that are successful to look up to is comforting and moving.