The journey has been long. But it looks like the PWHL was worth waiting for.

After dropping the puck for the first time on Jan. 1, the new six-team Professional Women’s Hockey League is delivering a fun, exciting product on the ice, is averaging more than 5,000 fans per game, and has already one-upped its own record-breaking crowds.

The league’s second game, a 3-2 overtime win for Montreal over Ottawa on Jan. 2, packed more than 8,300 fans into TD Place in Ottawa, the home of junior hockey’s Ottawa 67’s.

The Ottawa game broke the record for the largest attendance ever at a professional women’s hockey game, which had been set in Sweden for the 2021-22 championship game for the Swedish Women’s Hockey Leage, at 7,765. Per Reuters, the previous North American record was 5,938, set by the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League in 2016.

Just four days after the Ottawa record was set, Minnesota lived up to its nickname as the State of Hockey when more than 13,000 fans came through the turnstiles at Xcel Energy Center, home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild.

Those fans went home happy, too — watching their hometown side beat Montreal 3-0 off a hat trick from 24-year-old Grace Zumwinkle. The native of Excelsior, MN is playing her first pro season after spending two years as captain of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.

The timing of the PWHL launch couldn’t be better for players like Zumwinkle and her 23-year-old teammate Taylor Heise, another Minnesota native and former Gopher who won the Patty Kazmaier Award as the top play in NCAA women’s hockey in 2022. After the CWHL folded in 2019, the game’s top players elected to band together to form the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) with a goal of building one league with professional standards that would be sustainable for years to come.

That dream became a reality in August, after a group led by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his wife Kimbra purchased the assets of the eight-year-old Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) and dissolved the circuit two months earlier.

In early July, the 97 members of the PWHL Players’ Association ratified an eight-year collective bargaining agreement that had been negotiated by league executives and the group’s five-player executive committee: Brianne Jenner, Liz Knox, Sarah Nurse, Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Scofield.

“Any time that you have the opportunity to represent the voices of players, it’s a tremendous honor,” said Coyne Schofield, who was nine months pregnant with her first child while she sat at the bargaining table. “There were days that were tiring, hard, exhausting, but then there were days where it was inspiring.

“There are days that we knew we all want the same goal. You’re starting something brand new, and we’re creating a CBA that’s setting this league up to be successful greater than eight years. It's a pretty special table to be at.”

The groundbreaking pact laid the foundation for team rosters, player salaries and benefits including per diem, housing stipends, health and disability insurance, maternity leave and retirement benefits. Even seemingly small details like player meals were negotiated into the agreement and after it was signed, the league has stepped up by adding a reserve list to help teams deal with player injuries, and a nanny to help on road trips for new moms with children under one, including Minnesota’s Coyne Schofield and Natalie Spooner from PWHL Toronto.

On the ice, the hockey has been terrific. Every roster is rich with familiar names that have won gold medals with the Canadian and U.S. national teams. They’re supported by the biggest stars from the PHF, recent college graduates and some of the top names from Europe.

Anyone who has watched the Women’s World Championship or the Olympics knows that while there is technically no body-checking allowed in women’s hockey, there has always been a high level of intensity in the closely contested matchups.

The same rules for checking apply in the PWHL, but the emphasis has been on letting the players play. That’s how the players want it and the result has been fierce, physical and entertaining.

“To be honest I hope it even goes up a notch,” said PWHL Toronto coach Troy Ryan, who also coaches Team Canada, during the league’s first week. “I think it’s what the fans want. I know it’s how the players want to play, and I think they deserve to play that style of hockey. The officials so far have done a pretty good job of just letting them play. As a coach, I think it’s the way the game should be played.”

This year’s 24-game regular season will run through May 5. There will be two pauses: for an IIHF international hockey break in February and from March 26 - April 17 for the 2024 Women’s World Championship which will take place in Utica, NY from April 3-14.

The top four teams in the standings will advance to the playoffs, a two-round, best-of-five affair that will determine the inaugural PWHL champion.

There’s no word yet on a trophy or the name of the championship. And for that matter, team nicknames have not yet been established.

But the biggest boxes have been checked. Players are being treated professionally. The on-ice product is entertaining. And as fan interest in women’s sports is exploding, the PWHL is feeding that appetite.

To borrow a phrase from Mark Walter’s Los Angeles Dodgers, the PWHL has hit a first-inning home run.