Boston Fleet (Professional Women's Hockey League) @ Tsongas Center (Lowell, MA)

One venue: Two teams - two years apart (sorta)

*The trip that this post is largely based on occurred on April 26, 2025 - after I started the baseball stadium reports (but I didn't end up writing about it until some time later). However, I ended up merging in some details from when I wrote about this arena after a UMass Lowell game I attended on November 10, 2023 - and I'll start with a little bit of information on them (as the university owns the arena).

The University of Massachusetts Lowell (commonly known as UMass Lowell or UML) has a very interesting history. The "current" school was founded in the 1970s as the merger of two schools: Lowell State College and Lowell Technological Institute. Originally, the merged school was the University of Lowell, but merged with the University of Massachusetts system in 1991 (hence the quotes around "current" in the last sentence).

The athletic teams of the merged school were originally called the "Chiefs", but were pressured to change after joining the UMass system. A "name the team" contest was held, and the winning name was the school's current name: the River Hawks. As a school in a smaller conference without a football team, they're not really a major player in the college sports world, but their hockey team is a member of Hockey East - one of the premier conferences in college hockey.

Fun fact: the River Hawks hockey team actually has more national championships. (three) than some of their fellow Hockey East schools - even if they are D-II championships (from the late 70s/early 80s). For the most part, they've been kinda meh-to-okay in recent years despite having two of college hockey's "blue bloods" 20-ish miles to the south of them; their most notable alumnus in the NHL (at least currently) is Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebucyk, who was in goal when the team made the Frozen Four in 2013 (which also featured Yale, Quinnipiac, and St. Cloud State - raise your hand if you know where those last two are without looking it up).

However, this post isn't about UMass Lowell as their season had LONG ended by the time I made THIS visit. Now, let’s talk about the team I did see: the Boston Fleet - and their predecessors¹.

When the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) was founded in 2015, one of the four teams that was established was a team called the Boston Pride. The Pride were rather successful - making the playoffs every year and winning three championships in a seven-year span.

Given that history in the NWHL/PHF, it made sense that Boston was awarded one of the PWHL’s six charter franchises when it was established (and appropriately enough, they made the PWHL final in the league's first year). However, the PWHL wanted to convey a much higher image by having its teams play in “professional-looking” arenas. As such, the former home of the Pride - Warrior Ice Arena in the Allston-Brighton section of Boston - was deemed woefully inadequate for the league’s goals (it’s the practice facility for the Boston Bruins and has less than 1,000 seats). Needing to find a more “appropriate” home, the team/league found one in the Tsongas Center in Lowell.

Attendance at Fleet games is on the lower side compared to other teams in the league, and people on Reddit have labeled Boston a “struggling market” as they don’t understand why the Fleet seemingly can’t draw more fans. Here’s the thing, however: I’m willing to bet most of these people have never tried getting around Greater Boston on a weeknight.

Rush hour in Greater Boston SUCKS, and trying to get from anywhere near the city to Lowell on a weeknight is going to take AT LEAST an hour getting around 93/128/Route 3 (screw the cloverleaf). Heck, trying to get from the suburbs IN to Boston is awful during rush hour - something I had to do WAY TOO MANY TIMES when I was living there. The idea of moving the team closer to Boston/into Boston proper has been floated, but the lingering question of where they would play hasn't been answered yet.

Here is a list of their possible options:

1. TD Garden: 100% off the table. There’s not enough room between the Celtics (and their playoff games), Bruins (and their fewer playoff games), winter concerts, summer concerts, other random shows, the Beanpot (two Mondays in February), and the Hockey East championship (which got bumped by Disney on Ice in 2025)².
2. Agganis Arena (Boston University): currently the most likely option (as well as one the team HAS used in the past - though they lost BOTH games there). The only team they have to share with, in a sense, is BU’s men’s hockey team - on the surface. The thing with Agganis, however, is that the basketball and women’s hockey arenas are very close to it, and I've heard the university prefers to avoid having events on top of one another as parking/access in and around the area isn’t that great (speaking from experience).
3. Conte Forum on the campus of Boston College. This is actually the largest of any potential Boston homes that aren't the Garden, but it’s also likely off the table as it hosts four teams (men’s and women’s basketball and hockey teams). Also, BC - a more "closed-off" campus notoriously disliked by a lot of Bostonians who went to other schools.
4. Other wildcards. Northeastern is slated to get a new building soon, but it would house two hockey teams (NU’s men’s and women's teams), plus potentially basketball. Given the size of the largest Fleet crowds being close to the Tsongas Center’s capacity (~6,000), it’s unlikely this new arena (planned capacity of ~4,000), Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center (~3,000), or the aptly named Bentley Arena on the campus of Bentley University (~2,000)³ would work...

There's also been talk about playing in Worcester, as they have a large arena (the DCU Center) that currently only hosts a hockey team (the Worcester Railers of the ECHL). However, it’s 40 miles or so to the west of Boston, so it doesn't really solve the "Boston" problem.

As an aside, I have been to all of these buildings for hockey - save for the one that hasn't been built yet.

Anyway, back to Lowell: The Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell (that's the full official name) is a “mid-sized” arena that used to host an AHL team (the second highest professional men's league below the NHL) before the university took over the arena and essentially kicked the AHL out, and sees a lot of use outside of hockey. Besides the two hockey teams that call this place home, a lot of events take place here (for people who don’t want to deal with Boston traffic), and there’s an indoor football team here (the Massachusetts Pirates, who I thought about watching in 2025 before eventually deciding against it)⁴. This was my second visit to the arena, with the first being a UMass Lowell hockey game in 2023 (which they lost to Boston University despite trying to mount a late comeback).

The main concourse here is at the top of a single level seating bowl, meaning that everyone walks down to their seats from the concourse - which has an open view of the ice from much of the “south” and “west” sides (these are in reference to where the main TV cameras are for broadcasts). However, it should also be noted that part of the concourse here (the “east” side) is inaccessible due to a premium lounge; thus, you have to go down to the entrance lobby if you want to walk around the whole thing (translation: more exercise if you want to do laps around the arena).

Fair note for those who are afraid of loud noises: don’t sit behind the “west” goal in Lowell (i.e. the one UML defends twice). While it does give a nice view of the game (at least I think it does), you’re right underneath a scoreboard with a buzzer AND the goal horn (one of the few “real” ones I’ve seen in New England). It’s because of the goal horn that I chose to sit on the other side of the arena for the Fleet game; while I do think it was loud, it didn’t seem overbearingly loud IMO. Also, if you come for a UMass Lowell game, the school's pep band occupies a section of the seating bowl; when I was here for the UML game, it sounded like they were being piped into the arena's sound system (as they march around the arena before the game).

I found myself getting into this game WAY more than I thought I would have - though a large part of that is the Fleet goaltender getting a shutout. Inasmuch as I try to focus only on these games themselves and not the bigger picture, I must report that sadly, it turned out to be their final win of the 2024-25 season, as the team lost its last few games and missed the playoffs. Much like the Sirens, they had a rough offseason - losing their coach and several key players (with their most famous player leaving via an expansion draft), so between that and the perpetual issue of "where to play", their future is looking somewhat cloudy...

After the game ended, I found that the gates to another stadium were open while walking back to my car. Thinking it strange, I looked inside the stadium, and...

MERCH

There is a souvenir area in the lobby; it’s outside of where tickets are scanned, so if you don’t go before you enter the game, you have to “check in” with security if you want to look for merchandise pregame (or at least that’s what I had to do for the UML game).

When I went to the UML game in 2023, there was a second merch table on the concourse where I got an authentic Hockey East puck and saw game-worn jerseys being sold (I own replica versions of UML’s home and away jerseys, but I bought them at the campus bookstore). This was the first time I saw game-worn jerseys being sold at the college level, but not the first time I’d seen it at a hockey game (I went to a Providence Bruins game where they did this). From what I've heard and seen, the Fleet sell merch in this same area as well, but they didn’t for this game due to staffing shortages.

Like the Sirens, the Fleet merch selection also includes PWHL items as well. I got a Fleet game puck (as I had bought a jersey a month or so before the game), plus a reversible PWHL jacket (i.e. a jacket that can be either outwardly fleece-y or shiny). I was interested in a corduroy hat I saw online, but sadly, they didn’t have it at the game (or online, as it sold out pretty quickly).