When I decided that the Women's Euro Hockey Tour stop in Kloten to be the perfect spot for the next Women's Sport Collective Switzerland gathering, I was thinking primarily about the visibility of women's hockey in Switzerland. Indeed, last year I lamented the audience size and decided to try to do something about it at a local level, creating a map of arenas in which women's teams play in Switzerland (which I recently updated) , in the hopes that more people might discover a nearby team, and come to love the sport even a fraction as much as I do.

My Canadian heart didn't think of the interest this tournament would hold for North American fans, until this article about the Finland roster from Ian Kennedy in The Hockey News got me thinking along these lines.

I've since discovered (thanks in large part to Ian's reporting) that well over half of these European benches will be occupied by players on teams based in the US or Canada. 28 of those players are linked to the PWHL, with all 12 teams slated to be represented in this tournament along with almost as many players linked to NCAA teams.

Plus, the calendar change that moved the Women's Worlds to November casts a new spotlight on the Women's Euro Hockey Tour, making this tournament a much more visible and timely part of championship preparations for the participating teams and their players.

With these and other winds pushing people towards women's hockey, I am more excited than ever to be in the stands next week, doing my part to help a few more people discover women's hockey, and connecting women from across the sports world in Switzerland and beyond.

Since I started drafting this post, Ian Kennedy has also published articles covering the rosters for Sweden and Czechia, which, in addition to the Switzerland roster in this SIHF article on the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation website gives a great picture of who will be playing in this tournament.

Based on these, here are few figures of potential interest to PWHL fans:

The New York Sirens is the most interesting example, with the players spanning all 4 national teams, as well as the most players of any PWHL team (5).

They are followed by the Vancouver Goldeneyes, who are represented by 4 players across 3 countries, while the brand new PWHL Hamilton have 3 players in this tournament, each playing for a different country.

The Victoire de Montréal and Ottawa Charge are each represented in two of the national teams, by 3 players each. The 2 Minnesota Frost players will each be playing for a different country, while the 2 Seattle Torrent and 2 PWHL San Jose players will all play for Czechia.

The Toronto Sceptres are represented in the Swedish bench, Boston Fleet on the Finnish bench, while PWHL Detroit and PWHL Las Vegas each drafted a Swiss goalie for the upcoming season, both of whom are on the roster for this edition of the Women's Euro Hockey Tour.

On the flip side:

• Czechia will be playing with the most PWHL players: 11 players from 6 different teams,
• Finland will put women on the ice from the most different PWHL teams (7) across their 8 PWHL players
• Sweden's 5 PWHL players are each contracted to different teams
• Switzerland's 4 are also each tagged to different PWHL teams.

For a bit of European perspective:

• 25 players in the tournament are tied to teams in Sweden with the top teams being Brynäs IF with 8 players (6 player for Sweden, 2 for Czechia), and Linköping Hockey Club with 5 players, all on the Swedish roster. The remaining 12 are tied to 5 different teams in the SDHL - Swedish Dam Hockey League.
• 18 players are signed to teams in Switzerland, topped by EVZ with 7 players all playing for Switzerland (and at least 4 more who now play elsewhere, but have been part of the the team's short (3-year) history), as well as 4 from Hockey Club Davos AG (3 for Switzerland, 1 for Czechia). The remaining 7 come from 4 other teams under the umbrella of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation .
• The Czechia and Finnish rosters each have a single player tied to a local team.

I was going to end with a bit of history on the Women's Euro Hockey Tour, but this article is probably long enough already. Instead I'll pop in this link to Ian's brief overview of 2026-2027 Women's Euro Hockey Tour.

So if a trip to Zurich next week in the cards, get yourself tickets to a game (or six) and/or if you are women in sport, join the Women's Sport Collective gathering on August 21st for a backstage tour, networking apéro, and - of course - a game!

Note: this was adapted from a LinkedIn article, which can be found, with its original comments at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/womens-euro-hockey-tour-deserves-deeper-look-pwhl-fans-heather-force-fwnde/.

You can access the map with a pre-set focus on Switzerland here.