Long before PWHL expansion, the Vancouver Griffins were the city's 1st women's pro hockey team
The Vancouver Griffins played at New Westminster's Queen's Park Arena from 2000 to 2003
When Diane Nelson decided to start a women's pro hockey team, her mother warned her of the risks.
"The advice she gave me was like something you would give a gambler: You've got so many quarters, once you use it up, promise me that you won't go beyond," said Nelson.
Nelson, then a West Vancouver school principal, owned the Vancouver Griffins, a short-lived women's professional hockey team that played in the National Women's Hockey League from 2000 to 2003.
More than two decades after the Griffins played their last game, Nelson says she is delighted that the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) announced that Vancouver would be home to its first expansion franchise.
Nelson's mother, now 96 years old, was also excited by the news.
"It kind of validates that it wasn't a crazy idea," Nelson told CBC News. "It is something that has tremendous possibility and I'm just glad that I'm able to share it with my mom."
Looking back, Nelson says she was "naive" about the prospect of owning a pro women's hockey franchise at the start of the 21st century.
"The doors of opportunity that were supposed to open for me didn't," she said.
Nelson is hopeful that those doors may finally have opened for professional women's hockey in the city.
PWHL brings pro hockey back to Vancouver
The PWHL, which consists of six teams from Canada and the U.S., announced Wednesday that the new team will be known temporarily as PWHL Vancouver while it works to develop team branding, including a logo and name.
PWHL Vancouver will start playing in the 2025-26 season, which is expected to begin in November. The team will be the primary tenant at the Pacific Coliseum on the grounds of the Pacific National Exhibition in East Vancouver.
It will practice steps away at the PNE Agrodome.
Vancouver was chosen as the seventh PWHL franchise after an eight-month process that saw expansion bids from groups in more than 20 cities.
Earlier this year, Vancouver hosted a PWHL Takeover Tour game that drew more than 19,000 fans — the fourth-largest turnout in league history.
Within hours of the announcement, Amy Scheer, the PWHL's executive vice president of business operations, said Vancouver had already sold out of premium season ticket deposits.
PWHL vice-president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford noted that the city also has a deep history of women's hockey dating back to the Vancouver Amazons, who skated at the city's Denman Arena more than a century ago.
Hefford was part of the Canadian women's hockey team that won gold at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. She noted that the game has come a long way since then.
"I don't know, 15 years ago, if we thought we would have been here doing this," Hefford said at Wednesday's announcement. "It's pretty awesome to be able to share this moment with you."
The Griffins played their games at Queen's Park Arena in the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster, and featured top women's players such as Cammi Granato and Nancy Drolet.
Looking back, Nelson thinks the Griffins may have been too far ahead of the curve.
"I thought that I would get the support like we are having today sooner," she said. "I thought we would get more sponsorships."
After the Griffins folded, Nelson returned her focus to education, helping launch several sports academies with the West Vancouver School District.
She says she's proud of her time as the owner of a women's pro hockey team, even if the Griffins never quite managed to take flight.
"Somebody has to start, and I'm just glad that I had the opportunity to move this in a positive direction, but also to continue to make a difference in the world."
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With files from Karin Larsen, Karissa Donkin, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press