New York Sirens (Professional Women's Hockey League) @ Prudential Center (Newark, NJ)

Hockey makes its debut on this blog - and not at a shopping mall

*This trip occurred on February 17, 2025 - after my first visit to the Philadelphia Wings, but before the Rutgers Lacrosse game featured a few days ago. I originally had all of these set to go up chronologically, but decided to switch things up for narrative purposes.

Most of this blog has been about baseball/its stadiums so far, and while it is easily one of my favorite sports (mainly for the caps and jerseys - may write about that soon), there's one notorious "problem":

No one plays baseball around here in the winter.

I've lived in the Northeast my whole life, and winters here are known for being cold. No one wants to be outside for long periods of time when it's below freezing and/or there's a foot of snow on the ground (something that is becoming increasingly rare), and there's no real good options for "indoor baseball" (the nearest indoor baseball stadium to us is in CANADA¹). Therefore, I pivot to watching other things, but mainly hockey (with a bit of other things thrown in such as the NLL as mentioned in my last post²). I feel like it's probably the most exciting sport to watch, as it's faster than things such as soccer and basketball without the weird dragginess of other sports (looking at you NBA and NFL).

Also, just like baseball jerseys, I have a fairly extensive collection of hockey jerseys (despite the fact that they're often PRICEY). I've found that they make very good sweaters to wear for things like running errands when it's cold out, and people tend to like them (there's also the added benefit of it not being as tight to the body as a hoodie). Of course, they only work in the fall, winter, and early spring (whereas you can wear other jerseys year round), so it's hard to find opportunities to wear them out often.

Anyway, this post is SUPPOSED to be about a specific hockey game I went to, so without further ado...

The Prudential Center in Newark, NJ (not the mall in Boston) is probably the NHL arena I’ve been inside the most for two simple reasons:

1. I live in New Jersey (and the Devils have been my “second team” since I moved here from Massachusetts in 2001)
2. My dad’s company is based a few blocks away and has a private suite in the arena as a major sponsor of the Devils; I’ve seen at least four Devils games from it (including Martin Brodeur’s jersey retirement game, as it was on my birthday)

I can’t tell you how many Devils games I’ve been to over the years, but it’s at least seven based on a rudimentary count. In addition to Devils hockey, I’ve attended quite a few concerts here, a Seton Hall Pirates basketball game (which I remember almost NOTHING about), and an open practice when the NCAA tournament was in town (where I met Senator Cory Booker when he was still just the mayor of Newark). However, I’m not here to talk about any of that: I’m here to discuss the New York Sirens. The Sirens are New York’s CURRENT women’s hockey team - but to explain why I make that very specific distinction, we’re going to have to go back a bit.

Women’s professional hockey in the U.S. has had a bit of a weird history, but to simplify things: in 2015, a league called the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) was formed. Unfortunately for the league, a major domino fell in 2019 when a women’s league in Canada folded due to financial issues. That caused the players to form a players’ union, and said union didn’t exactly have a good relationship with the league - which at this point had been renamed the Professional Hockey Federation (PHF). In 2022, the union partnered with some investors, who ended up buying out the PHF’s assets, shutting it down, and establishing a new league - the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).

New York, being North America’s largest media market, was awarded one of the NWHL’s original franchises. Named the Riveters (after the World War II era icon), the team was fairly good - making the playoffs in all but one year of their existence and winning a championship in 2018. When the PWHL was formed, New York was once again chosen as one of the league’s charter franchises. However, the league felt the team needed a better home than American Dream Meadowlands - a literal shopping mall the Riveters spent their last few years playing at (don't get me started on the place).

The team's first home was in Bridgeport, Connecticut (home of the New York Islanders’ AHL affiliate), with a few games at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York (home of the Islanders). Unfortunately, crowds were sparse at both arenas, so the team tried the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Despite the team finishing dead last in attendance for the whole season, I believe that attendance was slightly better in Jersey, so they played the entirety of their second season in Newark, and while attendance was a bit better in year 2, they were still last in the PWHL. Part of this is that it’s difficult to find the “center” of youth hockey in the NYC metro, as that’s one of the PWHL’s larger audience groups (families), so each location they’ve chosen is difficult for portions of the fanbase to reach (unless you’re in Westchester County, which has no suitable arena)³.

This was the first time EVER I had attended a women's sporting event of ANY kind. A lot of that is due to a relative lack of interest/coverage, but the other thing is that I'm not that into basketball (i.e. the "main" women's sport for a decent chunk of my life), and the closest team - the New York Liberty of the WNBA - have always had a "high profile" which made getting tickets hard (and it's only gotten HIGHER recently). I did once think about watching the Riveters at their mall arena (because I HAD to know what that was like), but it never happened.

As the game I went to was on Presidents Day (i.e. a federal holiday), they managed to draw one of their better crowds of the year (a lot of schools use Presidents Day weekend to start their winter break). However, it still wasn’t a large crowd by most standards; to hide just how light the crowd was, the team only sold tickets on the side of the arena that was visible on camera.

The Sirens are very much not in a good spot sadly: in addition to their attendance woes, they finished dead last in both PWHL seasons on the ice (this game saw them lose 4-1 despite outshooting their opponents), and had a WOEFUL 2025 offseason partially due to PWHL expansion stripping the roster of what few good players the team had, so their outlook is easily one of the most dire in the league...

MERCH

Similar to the Banana Ball post, I’m going to focus on the Sirens (as opposed to the New Jersey Devils), as they were the team I ACTUALLY saw.

I realize that I haven’t spoken much about the actual arena itself, because I really don’t know what to say - it’s very much like every other indoor arena, though there’s a premium area in the main concourse that “blocks” the view of the arena bowl. The arena “floor” is at ground level, so to get to your seats, you go up an escalator/stairs after you scan your tickets and then wind up in this very wide open part of the concourse with large windows (plus displays of high school hockey jerseys from throughout the state). The Sirens had a merch table set up in this area, with your standard fare: hats, shirts, sweaters, jackets, jerseys, and hockey novelties (not just for the Sirens, but also the PWHL itself).

I was one of the first fans to go to the merch table when I went (as I beelined STRAIGHT for it after getting in), and I ended up getting a jersey and a game used puck. However, I didn't really wear the jersey I bought for this game, since the jersey I wore to the game ended up getting a lot of complements from people around me (you can never go wrong with the Phoenix Coyotes Kachina)⁴.

I will also note here, though, that I’ve rarely bought Devils merch here: I believe the only things I’ve gotten here are pucks, a special heritage jersey⁵, and a cool hat. I did “sneak out” of Martin Brodeur night with a special “Brodeur 30” hat and a commemorative book that were left in our suite that night - presumably for us to take.