Dieter Kurtenbach: With PWHL expansion, the Bay Area is now the undisputed capital of women's pro sports

San Jose landing a Professional Women's Hockey League franchise clinches an upgrade for the Bay Area after a pair of high-profile pro sports departures from the region.

More importantly, it's part of a larger, more positive trend.

We've endured the soul-hollowing exodus of sports franchises in recent years, as visionless cowards and grifters who shall remain nameless chase phantom dollars and inherent irrelevance in the desert.

The moves were senseless, short-sighted and emblematic of everything wrong with professional sports in this day and age.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and into that void has stepped a revolution.

Two wrongs have created three rights.

The Bay has gone from zero to three top-flight women's pro teams in a flash: Bay FC of the NWSL (2024), the Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA (2025) and now the PWHL, which arrives later this year.

It means we aren't just replacing what was lost. No, we're building something better.

Seeing women throw shoulders in the paint, pick up yellow cards and soon, carve up the ice, fundamentally rewrites the mythology of sports for everyone - male, female and everyone in between in the Bay. And with the P-Dub coming to SAP Center, my girls can now see the best in the world ply their trades in our backyard year-round. That's powerful, meaningful stuff.

And for the simple-minded dad who has a hard time hanging around that kind of meaning - I'm a sap - it's more top-tier hockey on the calendar.

What could be better?

The PWHL isn't some charity case - a polite exercise in corporate pandering. And I'm not on the payroll to promote this, either: I have ethics.

I'm just genuinely a fan of the P-Dub product, as my YouTube watch history can verify.

So let me tell you, in case you didn't already know: The PWHL is an absolute wagon of a show.

If you watched the U.S. women's hockey team fly around the ice to win gold at the Olympics, you already know the deal with women's hockey. Frankly, they were a better watch than the men in Milan.

And the PWHL is full of hits, blinding speed and the kind of crazy skill that makes you spill your beer. This sport translates 1 for 1.

Its arrival in the Bay comes at the perfect time, too. We're in the midst of a transition into what I believe will be a hockey decade for the region. At first, Macklin Celebrini's Sharks were the reason to get excited. Now, this P-Dub team can keep the frozen frenzy going.

But back to the larger implications: Success of women's sports in the Bay should be a point of regional pride, yes, but this new team also comes with some serious bragging rights for the South Bay, too.

San Jose is now the only city in the United States that has the top three North American hockey leagues within its borders: the NHL, the AHL and now the PWHL.

"Hockeytown" isn't in Michigan; it's here in Northern California. I expect the center circle at next season's newly renovated SAP Center to reflect this - deal with it, Detroit.

The Sharks deserve tremendous credit for helping to attract this new team. The PWHL has put on a "Takeover Tour" over the last two years to test potential expansion markets - San Jose didn't host a game.

And yet, because of the Sharks' new facilities and the support the region has given to Bay FC and the Valks (who recently became the first women's sports team with a valuation over $1 billion), the PWHL picked San Jose anyway.

The league didn't legitimize San Jose and the Bay; it's the other way around. How can you call yourself a top-flight women's sports league without a team here, in the epicenter of women's sports?

It's why pro volleyball is coming to San Francisco in 2027. Perhaps, if the Women's Professional Baseball League can make it through its pilot years, its "San Francisco" team will actually play in the Bay in 2028. This isn't just a trend, it's a phenomenon.

So, what do we call this new squad? San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan - or some overworked 24-year-old on his staff who clearly follows my Twitter account - stumped for my suggestion of the "Hammerheads" on Tuesday.

It perfectly matches the aggressive, aquatic bloodthirst of the Sharks and Barracuda. But it also carries the weight of history, honoring former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer, who was so instrumental in bringing professional hockey to San Jose in the first place.

But whatever the team is called, you can expect success.

The explosive growth of women's sports has transformed it from a niche market into a cultural and economic cornerstone, and nowhere is that better exemplified than here.

The Bay Area isn't a graveyard for relocated franchises; it's the fertile soil for a renaissance.

While the carpetbaggers peddle their mediocre wares in the desert heat, we are busy crowning a new royalty here in the Bay. We're watching and embracing a new empire being formed.

The future of big-time pro sports around here is both male and female. We're a dual threat.

So, yes, those wayward teams took their logos and their history, but amid those packing boxes, they couldn't take this region's sporting soul.

We simply don't need them anymore. And in their cowardly absence, we've found a better, tougher class of athlete to root for.

And we're still only getting started.

____

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.