[5] In July 2020, the planned start date was pushed back again to January 2021 with each team still set to play 20 games.

[8] In early December 2020, the league announced a partnership with analytics company Stathletes, led by Meghan Chayka, to provide data and statistics for the season.

[12][13] Barstool had previously faced criticism following repeated misogynistic and racist incidents, with Metropolitan Riveters rookie Saroya Tinker notably being the first NWHL player to publicly condemn the company.

[18] The league had originally planned to play a full season under a "sprint to the Cup" model, with the full 20 game season playing out over 10 weeks, but by October 2020, with the pandemic worsening and leagues such as the NFL failing to keep their players safe, the NWHL leadership decided that they would need to change formats.

[19] On November 25, 2020, the league announced the entire season would be held in a bubble with all games at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York, from January 23 to February 5, 2021.

[20][21] The plan was to follow similar bubble models that had been used successfully at the 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup and the 2020 WNBA Playoffs.

Since the maximum league salary is US$15,000, almost all players hold full-time jobs outside of hockey, including several who work in healthcare.

[23] The league partnered with the Yale School of Public Health to provide COVID-19 testing to players and staff inside the bubble.

[24] The university was to run a quality improvement study during the season, using paired saliva and nasal samples, which can provide two concurrent results.

Some teams plan to have their athletes autograph the cutouts after the end of the bubble season in order to auction them to raise funds for youth girls' hockey.

[28] On January 28, the Metropolitan Riveters were forced to withdraw from the bubble after three games played after at least ten[29] members of the organization testing positive for COVID-19.

[31] The Connecticut Whale forfeited their final game on February 1 and withdrew from the playoffs citing the need to protect the health and safety of their players.

The league did utilize a taxi squad for teams to sign players when they had to fill a roster spot due to a positive test or injury, utilized by Buffalo, Connecticut, and Minnesota; the taxi squad players were also subject to the same testing requirements before the season started and when they arrived.

[37] In December 2020, the league announced that all ten officials used during the season would be women, selected in collaboration with USA Hockey.

The bottom two teams, Boston and Buffalo, played a best-of-three play-in series for the fourth seed in the playoffs.

[33] The league then scheduled the Isobel Cup playoffs to be held at Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton, Massachusetts, for the last weekend in March.