Professional Women's Hockey League has sports fans hoping other leagues will steal its unique opponent-picking rule

The Professional Women's Hockey League has garnered a respectable amount of fanfare in its first year in existence, but a unique playoff rule is grabbing the attention of fans across the world who want to see it implemented for their preferred league or sport.

The PWHL was hot out of the gates with more than 170,000 views on the livestream of its inaugural game in January 2024 and completed its six-team, 24-game season by early May.

Heading into the playoffs, fans are noticing a unique rule that allows the number-one seeded team to choose its opponent out of the last two playoff-qualifying teams.

While the PWHL can only make minimal use of the rule given that just four teams make the playoffs, it isn't hard to imagine this implemented in the NHL, NBA, or NFL, where teams would be seriously looking to avoid top-ranked teams in the first round of the playoffs.

Inversely, it would create a bit more competition at the top in order to gain the right to choose who to play in the first round. It could be tinkered with to allow a choice of any of the bottom-ranked teams, or perhaps simply any team that doesn't win its division.

It would also be very insulting to a team that was picked, creating an immediate level of animosity between the two opponents.

In the PWHL, Toronto won the right to choose its opponent and went with Minnesota.

"Oh no, I see this being a very Toronto style outcome," a fan wrote on X.

The lore here is, of course, that Toronto sports teams have a way of failing in spectacular fashion, a prime example of that was showcased two days after the fan's comment.

The NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs found themselves down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series against rival Boston Bruins. After winning two games to force a game seven, the Leafs went ahead in the third period for a little over a minute, only to be scored on and then quickly lose in overtime after a wild bounce of the puck.

Moments like this would be even more spectacular with the help of the playoff seeding rule.

One NHL fan suggested the new rule to long-time analyst Dave Hodge after the reporter was playing around with a few ideas of his own.

"To add more late-season NHL interest: Award 5 home games to division winners in the 1st playoff round, and 5 home games in every playoff round to the Presidents’ Trophy winners. Currently, the race for 1st overall finds 8 teams separated by 5 pts. Fun, no?" Hodge wrote.

"Allow seeding to order them to choose opponents in the playoffs," the fan replied.

ESPN's Greg Wyshynski disagreed with the rule and said that, through testing, it has usually resulted in the expected seeding. "I love 90% of the PWHL rule changes. Can't win 'em all," he wrote.

At the very least, the rule has done what the league has hoped and created intrigue and discussion around its style of play.

As of late, much of the internet was focused on the league's "diversity, equity, and inclusion." The league was pushing it so hard that a fan reported attendees at a game in Ottawa were directed to recite a diversity statement before the game as it was displayed on the video arena's video screen.

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