The Ottawa Charge will play at the Canadian Tire Centre beginning in the 2026-27 season as part of a multi-year deal with the Ottawa Senators, the Professional Women’s Hockey League team announced Thursday.
Charge general manager Mike Hirshfield confirmed the PWHL team would leave its current home ice at TD Place Arena to play and practise at the Canadian Tire Centre starting this fall.
“We’re really excited about this opportunity,” Hirshfield said during a news conference at the CTC on Thursday afternoon. “We’re excited, obviously, to play in this arena and all the benefits that we’ll get from playing in this type of arena. We’re also extremely excited to work closely with the (Ottawa Senators). They’ve been great partners so far, and we’re looking forward to aligning even more closely as we move forward.”
Hirshfield also thanked Mark Goudie, president of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, and Adrian Schiarra, president of the Ottawa Redblacks and Ottawa 67’s.
“They were very professional and great to work with. I want to make sure that we acknowledge them and all that they helped us with as we started from day one to get to this point,” he said.
OSEG did not immediately respond to requests for comment from OBJ on Thursday.
The Canadian Tire Centre is owned by Capital Sports Properties Inc., which is a part of the Senators Sports and Entertainment group.
“We were glad to be part of it, and glad to share in that enthusiasm and that excitement, and I would just say that we really feel that the PWHL and the Ottawa Charge, an important part of our hockey ecosystem here, while we run an NHL team, we really think we’re stewards of the sport as well, and we need to be cognizant of that,” Senators president and CEO Cyril Leeder told reporters on Thursday.
By moving to a larger venue, the Charge hope to attract more fans and corporate sponsors. Still, some fans of the team have expressed concern about the franchise’s move to Kanata.
Last November, city council approved plans for Lansdowne 2.0. The plan includes building a new 6,700-seat event centre that will be smaller than the current arena at TD Place, which has nearly 9,000 seats.
The Charge have been outspoken since last fall that they wouldn’t play at the new facility because its capacity would be too small.
Last season, the Charge played one regular season game at the CTC on April 3, attracting 17,114 fans. When the Charge made the Walter Cup playoffs this spring, the team played four home games at the Kanata arena, with attendance ranging from more than 11,000 to nearly 17,000 fans.
While acknowledging some of the fan base has concerns about the move to the west end of the city, Hirshfield said the team will work hard to continue to create an “open and safe environment” to attract crowds.
“I think the opportunity is that we have more capacity here and can bring more fans into this building to see our sport and see our athletes and how incredible they are,” he said.
“It’s something that we’re going to have to work hard at to make sure that our fan base continues to come and… to grow, but we’re excited for that challenge.”
Hirshfield added that the move to the Sens’ home arena comes with opportunities to expand the Charge’s roster of corporate partners.
“As we continue to grow, as our league continues to grow, we’ll try and explore every opportunity to add more partnerships to our league and to our organization. That’s why I think aligning ourselves with the Sens organization is something that will be helpful in that pursuit,” he said.
Speaking to OBJ in March, Leeder said the Senators were focused on growing the game in Ottawa.
“While we’re trying to transact business in the current year, we’re still planning for the future. We’ve got a vested interest in growing the game and the Ottawa Charge are an important part of that ecosystem. I think the women’s game, and the girls’ game in this area, has always been strong. The Charge just shines a bigger spotlight on the women’s game. That’s why, when they reached out to say, ‘Would you talk to us?’, we agreed,” he told OBJ in March.
At the time, Leeder said that welcoming the Charge to the CTC would not pose any challenges for the Sens as far as scheduling goes.
“Whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate, we’re not fully booked every night at the CTC. There are lots of dates available. We have a lacrosse team that plays here 10 nights a year. We could easily put two more teams in this building and not use all the good Friday, Saturday and Sundays. I’m not too worried about stretching it too thin. There’s lots of available dates to accommodate the Charge or anybody else that wants to come here, whether it’s a concert or a team sport. We’re open for business,” he said.
Since then, the Ottawa Black Bears lacrosse team announced it would not return to the CTC for its 2026-27 season. No new venue for the team has been announced.
Patrick Whalen is the founder of Extension Marketing and the Sports Marketing Report, but he’s perhaps better known as president and CEO of the Ottawa 67’s from 2001 to 2012 and former executive vice-president and chief marketing officer of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group when the Ottawa Redblacks made their CFL debut in 2014.
Regarding concerns about the Charge’s move to Kanata, Whalen said he believes the team did its due diligence when weighing the decision.
“I’m going to assume they did their homework. They know their demographic. They know how many people they’re drawing from the east end of town versus the west end of town. The only way I’d have a concern about this is if you know that 90 per cent of their current attendance is coming from east of Bank Street.
“They’re going to make it up somehow. They’re going to get more west-end people than before. They must know the numbers to make this decision,” Whalen told OBJ Thursday.
Speaking to OBJ on the future of women’s professional sports in Ottawa earlier this year, Whalen said the appeal of the Ottawa Charge and Ottawa Rapid FC was the teams’ accessibility to fans.
As with any sports team, Whalen said half the venue will be filled with avid fans and the other half with casual supporters. While avid fans are “the ones that are going to go through thick and thin,” no matter how the team performs or the ticket price, casual fans are the ones “that will really make or break a franchise.”
“The key for (casual fans) to want to engage with your franchise — and this is where I think women’s sports have a leg up — is that they want to be entertained at a reasonable price.”
Casual fans will also want to engage with a franchise if the team is winning frequently, he added.
“There’s no better marketing tactic than a winning team,” Whalen said earlier this year.
But when it comes to pro sports in Ottawa, Whalen said women’s teams may have another advantage over their male counterparts in attracting fans — either casual or avid.
“I think fans can relate better to it, because (the players are) not making, for the most part, what a Senators player is making. There’s a relatability factor there,” Whalen said. “It’s going to be all about grassroots. It’s one of the things that made the 67’s successful; that their players (were) more accessible than those in the NHL. I think it’s going to be key for them to make sure that their players are out in the community, whether it’s the soccer team or the hockey team.”
On Thursday, Whalen said the move to Kanata won’t affect the team’s current branding, as long as the Charge is careful with its messaging.
“They’ll have to say, ‘Hey, even though we’re moving to a new venue, we’re still going to be involved in the community.’ Because they run a little bit of a risk of coming off as too big to do those smaller things in the community. As long as they get in front of that messaging, they’ll be fine,” he said.
Overall, Whalen said, the move is a good sign for both the team and women’s professional hockey in Canada.
“From a business perspective, I think it’s very positive news for them,” he told OBJ. “When they had a few games (at the CTC) last year, they sold more tickets than they would in the smaller TD Place.”
The Charge will play 15 regular-season home games next season compared with 42 for the Senators, so Whalen said it should be easy enough for the two teams to co-ordinate schedules.
“It’s almost like the NFL. The NFL does so well for so many reasons, but one of the reasons being that there are so few games, so it’s a real event to go to a game… It really plays in their favour,” he said.
Leeder said Thursday he believes the two teams won’t have any issues with scheduling.
“We’re not in a spot where we are challenged for dates on our calendar yet, so I think we’re able to fit in a Senators’ schedule and then provide enough meaningful, useful dates to the Charge (so) that they can get a really good schedule out of it. If it got to the point where we couldn’t, then I think a doubleheader becomes a logical thing that you look at,” he said.
Leeder added that, with the Charge calling the CTC home next season, the arena’s facilities will undergo some changes to accommodate the new team.
“One of the key drivers of the agreement was the PWHL really wanted to have a permanent home and a campus here in the building, so that work is underway,” he said.
Hirshfield added that changes will include a dedicated locker room, lounge for players, medical space, equipment room and coaches offices.
It remains to be seen if the Charge will follow the Senators when they move to their new arena at LeBreton Flats.
“Will the Charge be involved in downtown planning? We’re still working on getting them into this building,” Leeder told reporters Thursday. “So I think at some point we’ll turn our attention to that. It would be natural. At some point, we will be designing interior spaces at the downtown venue, and we’d very much like to be designing a campus there for the Charge as well.”
