The announced crowd of 7,238 for Sunday’s Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Takeover Tour game at Allstate Arena was the smallest so far for a tour match.That does not mean Chicago hurt itself in the race for an expansion team in the rapidly growing league.“Chicago’s an attractive market to us. I thought today was a successful day for the league here,” Jayna Hefford, the league’s executive vice president of hockey operations, told the Sun-Times. “[We’ll] continue to learn more about the market and see if it could be a potential market for us.”On the ice, the Ottawa Charge defeated the Minnesota Frost 3-2 in overtime. Ottawa’s Sarah Wozniewicz scored the winner at 3:55 of the extra period and goalie Gwyneth Philips stopped 41 shots to give the Charge the victory in an entertaining rematch of last season’s PWHL championship series won by Minnesota.“You just saw what the PWHL’s all about,” Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod said. “That’s every game.”Though the event showcased the PWHL’s elite talent, the attendance fell short of other Tour events.Over nine Takeover Tour games last season, the PWHL averaged an announced crowd of 13,733 customers, headlined by Edmonton, Quebec City and Vancouver all drawing over 17,000 per event. The six US markets that had matches during the 2024-25 slate of neutral-site regular season games (Buffalo, Denver, Detroit, Raleigh, Seattle, St. Louis) drew an average of 11,454, including four exceeding 10,000 fans.To kick off this season’s slate of 16 tour games, the match Wednesday in Halifax attracted 10,438. Unlike…
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