DENVER — History was made on Sunday when the Mile High City was painted purple.
The Minnesota Frost beat the Montréal Victoire 4-2 at Denver’s Ball Arena in front of a record 14,018 fans as part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s (PWHL) Takeover Tour. The six-team league is in its second season and is playing select games in neutral sites across the country, while dangling the possibility of an expansion team.
The purple of PWHL branding and the Frost team color flooded the home of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Colorado Avalanche as fans electrified the arena with cheers, chants and sing-alongs.
The game was a battle between the top two teams in the league — and a battle it was. After trading goals, the Frost pulled away in the third period, scoring two unanswered points. Minnesota’s Maggie Flaherty netted her first goal of the season and Michela Cava finished off the first-place Victoire with less than two minutes left in the game.
Minnesota, the defending Walter Cup champions, moves into the top spot in the PWHL standings with the win that was bigger than a game.
“When I was a kid, I watched the NHL, but for those girls now to be able to watch the PWHL, it’s really cool to have those role models that we didn’t necessarily have as a kid besides outside the national team,” goaltender Maddie Rooney, who got her fifth win of the season, told reporters after the game. “So super special.”
While the Avalanche are three-time Stanley Cup champions, there has been little top-level women’s hockey showcased in Colorado besides a few Team USA exhibition games leading up to the Olympics.
Despite the loss, the Victoire were able to appreciate the significance of the day.
“The attendance is just continuing to grow and anytime you get to grow the game here in the States, it’s a success,” Montréal defender Cayla Barnes, who hails from Corona, California, said. “So I think tonight was a huge win for women’s hockey.”
When the attendance record was announced, Ball Arena erupted with chants of “We Want A Team.”
Denver Takeover Tour sets United States attendance record for women’s hockey while inspiring the youth
The PWHL Takeover Tour game set the United States attendance record for professional women’s hockey with a crowd of 14,018 fans. This mark broke the previous record set last season in Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena where 13,736 people showed up to watch Boston overtake Ottawa, 2-1.
The international record was set last season in April when Montréal drew a sold-out crowd of 21,105 to the Bell Center in a 3-2 overtime loss against Toronto.
The Denver game now ranks as the third-most attended matchup in the PWHL, as the league continues to break its own records.
Besides the attendance record, the Mile High City has shown that it takes the winter sport seriously. Besides the Avalanche, the University of Denver Pioneers have established themselves as a collegiate powerhouse with an NCAA record ten championships. The minor league Colorado Eagles have also built a buzz.
The PWHL makes it easy to get excited about the movement. At the Denver stop of the Takeover Tour, there were multiple entry points to celebrate girls hockey throughout the weekend.
On Saturday, Family Sports Center was bubbling with energy when the Victoire and Frost held open practices followed by autograph sessions. The league held a youth camp with the Avalanche and registration filled up quickly. Little girls were running up to their parents smiling ear-to-ear to show off their autographs while older girls were in their element hanging out with friends. Some were wearing their own jerseys from their club teams. Others sported official PWHL jerseys. The youth-sized jerseys cost $100 on the league’s website. It’s clear the league is taking the word “professional” seriously and fans are buying in.
“To showcase these ladies’ talents, that’s what it’s all about to me,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “It’s about growing the game, the women’s hockey game. How far it’s come even since I first got involved in 2014, it’s remarkable. Now to see when people were asking me yesterday at practice, ‘Well how’s it gonna be? We haven’t seen them live.’ I said, ‘You wait. You’re gonna see something, you’re gonna say, that’s incredible.’”
At the game on Sunday, the celebration continued. The league’s Celly Squad band performed renditions of Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel like a Woman” and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl.” During the second intermission, there was a group photo for all women and girls who play hockey. The players filled Ball Arena’s main staircase.
While the teams warmed up, they tossed pucks to the fans clamoring against the glass. At the end of the matchup, both teams met at the center of the ice to do a stick salute to the crowd.
“It was great to have the fans behind us when we scored,” Sophie Jaques said. She netted Minnesota’s second goal of the game in her return from injury. “... I think it was great that the crowd was just loud in general, really feeds into the excitement of the game.”
One of the Ball Arena video boards welcomed various club teams, including the Arapahoe Lady Warriors, the Colorado Springs Tigers and the New Mexico Mustangs.
“We love to see all the fans, but that next generation is kind of what it’s all about and who we’re trying to inspire the most,” Barnes said. “If they see us out there, they believe that they can do it. So just having them all around the glass seeing their jerseys and our jerseys, it’s inspiring for them, but it’s also a huge win for us and inspiring for us as well.”
Nicole Hensley embraces homecoming at PWHL Takeover Tour stop in Denver
For Frost goaltender Nicole Hensley, the game served as a homecoming. She grew up in Lakewood, Colorado, just west of Denver and played on the local boys team before joining a girls club team. She had a record-breaking career at Lindenwood University in St. Louis and then won gold and silver medals in two Olympic appearances with Team USA. She was the first goaltender to be selected in the PWHL draft. When Minnesota won the inaugural Walter Cup, she took the trophy home to Red Rocks Amphitheater and also Edge Ice Arena where she cut her chops.
“I’m pretty excited, obviously,” Hensley told the media at open practice on Saturday about being back on the ice in her hometown. “I know a lot of people that are coming tomorrow and heard from a lot of people like former coaches and obviously friends and former teammates and friends and family as well. It’ll be a really cool event and yeah definitely want to be able to take a moment in and appreciate how far the women’s game has come, but also how far it has come in Colorado specifically.”
Hensley has become a fan favorite balancing net duties with Rooney and because of her friendly personality.
One young fan at the game held up a sign to the glass that said, “Hensley I share your faith and you really inspire me! Selfie?”
Another fan had a sign that said, “What dreams are made of … PWHL Denver takeover … seeing my fav goalie play… Welcome home #29.”
“She’s such a great person and so humble in who she is that when you really look at all her accolades and who she is and how much she’s achieved, it kind of blows you away,” designer and hockey fan Adrienne Ruth told Kick The Concrete. “I love that she herself kind of is just like, ‘Yeah, that’s who I am.’ … I really have idolized the way that she’s been as a person like that of just, ‘I’m here, I’m doing my thing and whatever comes from it, comes from it.’”
Hensley didn’t play in the Takeover Tour game due to an injury she suffered during warm-ups ahead of Minnesota’s 5-0 loss to the New York Sirens on Jan. 4. But she participated in the ceremonial puck drop at Ball Arena with the Victoire’s Kristin O’Neill and USA Hockey Executive Director Pat Kelleher.
Her parents, Darren and Linda, cheered her on throughout the weekend, including at the open practice at Family Sports Center. They reflected on how their daughter’s hockey fandom is coming full circle.
“Growing up, she expected, always wanted to play for the Avalanche,” Linda told Kick The Concrete, “so actually to get to play on their ice as a professional hockey player is a dream come true.”
One of Hensley’s role models was Hall of Fame goalie Patrick Roy. Linda recalled attending all the parades and festivities when the Avalanche won their first two Stanley Cup titles. She said the family was on vacation when Colorado won the 1996 championship, but her daughter couldn’t miss a minute of the action.
“We were at the beach and always had to go in every night to watch the games,” she laughed.
Darren noted that a significant moment in Hensley’s career was after the 2018 Olympics when Team USA won the gold medal. Since she attended college at nearby Lindenwood, the St. Louis Blues invited her to do the ceremonial puck drop.
“They happened to be playing the Avs, and so she got to spend some time meeting and talking to Joe Sakic and that was a huge deal for her,” he said.
Darren and Linda have seen the highs and lows of Hensley’s hockey journey. They are hopeful about what the PWHL offers their daughter, including a salary, benefits and a 401(k). In 2023, the league and the PWHL Players Association agreed to a 62-page collective bargaining agreement that runs through 2031.
“It really is a dream come true to have this league and have these women finally being treated as professional athletes,” Linda said, “having all the bells and whistles so to speak that they deserve. This has been a long time coming. I think that it’s just phenomenal to watch.”
Drip Check: Nicole Hensley bridges homes with custom jacket by Murder on the Ice
Nicole Hensley has a love for fashion and is one of many athletes showing the world that they are more than their stats. She wore the Jordan 1 x Travis Scott Olive sneakers to the open practice and autograph session on Saturday and made a statement Sunday for the game. She wore a black jacket custom designed by Adrienne Ruth of Murder on the Ice Design Co.
Ruth is known in the local hockey community for her clever designs that weave together hockey and pop culture. Last year, the Avalanche enlisted her to make a jersey for Fan Appreciation Night. She connected with Hensley in 2022 and, ahead of the goalie’s homecoming via the Takeover Tour, reached out and offered to make the bespoke piece.
The black jacket has seven columbines on the back, representing Colorado’s state flower and tying in the Frost’s purple.
“It was very fun to work on because I was just surrounded by multiple shades of purple for the last month and I was like, ‘This is my happy place,’” Ruth told Kick The Concrete at Ball Arena, saying the jacket “was a true honor to do.”
The number and placement of six flowers represents the PWHL teams and the seventh flower represents Hensley herself.
“I’ve always loved painting columbines too, so it was really fun to put them on the jacket and I put a little glitter on them that blends to kinda give it the frosted look of snow as well,” Ruth continued. “So I feel like you get both the notions of Colorado, but then the frost and the Minnesota colors of the team meshing really well together.”
After playing simply under the city or state name in the PWHL’s inaugural season, each team now has a mascot and official uniforms. Hensley said she really appreciates the Frost’s new identity that Ruth modeled her design after.
“I think the league did the right thing to kind of take their time and create something for each market that made a lot of sense and that fans could really grab onto,” she told the media at Saturday’s open practice. “And personally, I love our color scheme. I love the purple. Getting to have all-purple pads as a goaltender is super fun. I think the fans have really grasped onto it too. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Ruth also sprinkled in other Colorado details like “Welcome to Colorful Colorado,” which is featured on the state’s welcome sign — and is a design element of another purple team, the MLB’s Colorado Rockies City Connect uniform. There’s other nods to Hensley’s life on and off the ice, including a list of her accomplishments like the Olympic medals and being the first goalie taken in the PWHL draft, as well as a drawing of her dog, Kai, and a bitten Reese’s peanut butter cup under the collar, an ode to Hensley’s favorite candy.
Ruth gave Hensley the jacket at the open practice session on Saturday and the goaltender was visibly thrilled at the final product. The designer also enjoyed seeing the reaction of Hensley’s parents, which was further affirmation of her genuine spirit.
“Her mom was just so sweet like, ‘Oh my God, is that THE JACKET?’” Ruth beamed. “… (Hensley) truly was blown away and it was really special that she was very excited about it. And I’m thankful that she’s kind of being like, ‘Hey, I can give you a platform through my platform.’ I think as a small business owner and artist that’s always the biggest thing you can hope for is someone to kind of embrace it and go, ‘Yeah, let me show you off and be happy to do that.’ So I’m really thankful for that.”
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