PWHL: Women's ice hockey finds a winning formula with new pro league

At the end of the play-offs, one team will walk away being the first to have won the inaugural Walter Cup championship trophy - but for the Professional Women's Hockey League, their inaugural season was already a victory.

By the time the buzzer rang at Montreal's Bell Centre, sports history had been made: a record 21,105 people had attended a professional women's ice hockey game.

The April game - between Montreal and Toronto - marked the crowning achievement of the six-team Professional Women's Hockey League's (PWHL) inaugural season.

The initial success of the league, which spans both the US and Canada, comes as interest in women's sports soars - and after previous attempts to establish a professional women's league sputtered and ultimately failed, due to low attendance and financial woes.

In total, nearly 393,000 fans attended the league's regular season games at venues in Boston, New York, Minnesota, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.