In sports-crazy Seattle, Meghan Turner is laying the foundation for PWHL success
Trying to stand out in a busy sports market is never easy, especially when you’re the new show in town.
For Seattle, one of the two expansion teams set to take to the ice for the 2025-26 PWHL season, they have quite a challenging task in grabbing the spotlight. Yet, general manager Meghan Turner feels like the pieces are in place to create something special right away.
Turner was hired as Seattle’s first head of hockey operations after working under Boston Fleet GM Danielle Marmer for the past two seasons as an assistant GM. She not only had to worry about creating an exceptional squad for the team’s inaugural season, but also put forth a product that would attract fans in one of the busiest markets in North America.
When the PWHL announced its expansion to Seattle, it made the Emerald City the first market in the U.S. to house teams in the three major women’s sports leagues, as the NWSL’s Seattle Reign and WNBA’s Seattle Storm have established fanbases. On top of that, the PWHL team has to compete with the MLB’s Seattle Mariners, the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Kraken for attention.
“My impression thus far has been that there’s this infatiable appetite for sports and for women’s sports,” Turner said in an exclusive interview with Daily Faceoff. “And that people mobilize. It really does feel like a very supportive city and supportive sports market, both from the organizational side and also from the fans, as well. Boston’s a pretty saturated sports market, too. So, we’re coming from a place where I have some understanding of having other teams in the area and how we can work together.”
Unlike the team in Vancouver, Seattle is playing in shared space, with its home games being held at Climate Pledge Arena, home to the Kraken and Storm. However, Turner says the outpouring of support the team has already received from its neighbors has been tremendous.
“The Kraken they’ve helped us with our [youth and adult hockey] camps that we had out there this past August. … It doesn’t seem as though we’re competing, per se, with other teams. It’s more so we enable each other and support each other.”
From playing at the NCAA level and briefly in the professional ranks, the opportunity to run a team and be a part of the rapid growth of the PWHL in a new market is quite the honor, Turner says.
“It’s kind of surreal. I felt honored and humbled to know that the leadership team trusts me to be a good ambassador for the league and do a good job with the organization. … Knowing that there’s a lot of trust and responsibility in me and that I need to step up to the plate. So, a lot of pinch-me moments, but a lot of motivation and drive to do a really good job.”
The decision to leave the Fleet and take on a GM role with a new team wasn’t on the former Quinnipiac defender’s radar. Yet, when Seattle was the destination, Turner knew it was a place she would be interested in going to, for personal reasons.
“My wife lived out there for a year after college, and then her twin sister joined her after college. Her twin sister ended up staying there for about nine years. So, we would go out there a lot to visit…they own a home still. So, it’s still kind of a secondary home base for my sister-in-law, who I’m really close to. It’s cool to kind of go back in a different capacity.”
The former PWHPA member admits that it wasn’t easy to leave New England.
“I was certainly happy in my goal with Boston,” Turner said. “I wasn’t really, candidly, I wasn’t really looking at [becoming a GM]…throughout the year. I was just focused on how to do my job as best as I could. Once they started hiring for the role, I was lucky enough to be in that interview process. I think that really tipped my interest for the position. Obviously, Danielle was super supportive. She’s just a really supportive leader and wants to see her people and her employees take good jobs and do the things that they want to do.”
Compared to Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey, who previously coached at Princeton University before moving up to the PWHL, Turner recognizes that her everyday work with Boston helped give her an idea of what type of team she wants to put together. Like the team the Fleet built over its first two years, Turner looked for speed and physicality to build a winner. While she has been forced to stray from her plan a little bit, the Bedford, New Hampshire native believes her vision of PWHL Seattle has gone to plan.
“I set out from the beginning knowing that I wanted a certain culture and certain attributes. I also wanted to make sure that I got my leadership in place. You can’t always get everything you want…it took a bit of sticking to my kind of core values and what I wanted to do as far as composing the roster, but also making sure that I felt flexible and looking at other options that I may not have had considered before…but I do feel as though it all rolls up into the same kind of fast, physical, competitive, and mature and professional values that I have for myself and I want to impart on the team too.”
Among the notable names Turner has brought to Seattle are former Fleet rookie Hannah Bilka and Alex Carpenter, as well as role players like Lexie Adzija and Natalie Snodgrass, to bring something extra to the team.
One of the biggest headlines Seattle created was inking former Fleet captain Hilary Knight during the team’s exclusive signing period. Turner admits convincing the future Hall of Famer wasn’t as hard as some might perceive.
“You’ve seen Hilary take this game a really long way. … She’s still continuing to be the leader and push this game to literally new cities and new heights. So, I think it made sense. … Watching her from the outside looking in, she takes people on with her, and she has a unique ability to take the game and to amplify it. She’s a true pro. It was an obvious decision for me to try to bring her on board, and I think she’s excited to continue to grow the game out west.”
Whether or not you believe Seattle “won the expansion process,” it’s easy to see what Turner and her staff are building in the Pacific Northwest. There’s a growing level of excitement around the team, thanks to the personnel additions and a simple plan to attract fans in the sports-crazed market.
“It’s just getting our staff and our players out into the community to start, then we can kind of start to build our marketing approach….It’s boots on the ground for us. We’re out meeting people and starting to make those connections. … This season, it’ll be more, ‘How do we make that game experience truly amazing and unique for people that they’ll come back, but they’ll bring more with them?’ It’s all the traditional marketing things that you might see, but also just the interpersonal aspect of it and getting out and meeting our fans in the community.”
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