For the first Professional Women's Hockey League game to be played in Canada's capital, Ann-Sophie Bettez scored at 1:04 of overtime to give Montreal a 3-2 win over Ottawa.
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Montreal 3, Ottawa 2 OT
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A new chapter in the longstanding Ottawa-Montreal sports rivalry got off to a spine tingling start on Tuesday night as the old hockey barn on Bank Street was as loud and alive as ever.
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In fact, the jam-packed Arena at TD Place felt just like the Civic Centre did 32 years ago for the Senators’ first game back in the NHL, or seven years later when the 67’s won the Memorial Cup on home ice.
Take it from someone who was at both.
On hand for the first Professional Women’s Hockey League game to be played in Canada’s capital was the largest crowed to ever witness a women’s pro hockey game, a noisy 8,318, and they did not go home disappointed – even after Ann-Sophie Bettez scored with a stick side shot at Emerance Maschmeyer at 1:04 of overtime to give Montreal a 3-2 win over Ottawa.
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The winning goal capped an exciting and entertaining evening as the players showed that although their teams have no nicknames or logo, they themselves have plenty of game.
In the end, the outcome almost seemed secondary.
“I think you’d be remiss to walk into an an evening like tonight and be worried about the scoreboard,” said Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod. “We talked about that in pregame. It wasn’t going be about the result tonight, it was going to be about the experience, and we just had an experience that I’m not sure you could ever duplicate. If it happens again, and we get to fill a barn again, we’re going to be pretty lucky because that fan base was like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
After dealing with some early jitters that had the ice tilted toward the Ottawa zone in the opening minutes, the home team rode a wave of adrenalin provide by the pumped up crowd that would later turn back the clocks a few decades by actually doing the old stadium wave.
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As close as the teams battled, when Katerina Mrazova broke a 1-1 deadlock at 5:16 of the third period by slipping in a rebound after Montreal goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens had stopped a shot from Ashton Bell, it felt like that goal would be enough to give Ottawa the victory.
But the visitors bounced back when Laura Stacey tied it up 5:38 from the end of regulation time, breaking down the right wing and squeezing a shot past Maschmeyer.
The crowd was taken on a greater roller-coaster ride of emotions in the second period.
It started when Marie-Philip Poulin — the world’s top female hockey player — was awarded the PWHL’s first penalty shot after being hauled down on a breakaway by Ottawa’s Zoe Boyd.
Maschmeyer rose to the occasion, denying Poulin as she attempted to finish off a deke by tucking the puck through the five-hole.
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Three and a half minutes later it looked like Ottawa’s Mikyla Grant-Mentis had opened the scoring when she picked up the puck at the offensive blue line and deked Desbiens before sliding it in the short side.
Replays showed the net had lifted just enough for the puck fit under it. No goal.
Some five minutes later, Hayley Scamurra officially played the role of Neil Brady, who scored the Senators’ first goal at the Civic Centre on Oct. 8, 1992, when she fired a blast to the top shelf past Desbiens to give Ottawa a 1-0 lead.
“It’s up there for me, I think,” Scamurra, a product of Williamsville, New York, and a two-time gold medal winner at the World Championship, said of where the goal ranked among her career highlights. “Even just skating out for warmups and the way that they cheered for us, and they were all there in that moment, I think that was up there in my moments for hockey. And to be able to score the first goal for this franchise, it’s an absolute honour.”
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The Ottawa lead was shortlived, however, as Claire Dalton tied the score 81 seconds later with a short-side shot past Maschmeyer.
Before the game, league officials told reporters that teams in the league that was born only a few months ago might play the entire first season without nicknames or logos.
“There are people working on it,” said Stan Kasten, a member of the PWHL advisory board and former president of the Atlanta Thrashers. “But as we were rushing things, at some point it became obvious to us that there are certain things we really, really need to do right now and other things that we can put off. And the things that we had to put off we were able to put off. So I will tell you this, the things we knew that were essential with getting the hockey right … and it chokes me up when I have to talk about it because these players have waited so long for this … but we got the best players in the world and we gave them the best possible conditions. And so we got the hockey right.”
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Jayna Hefford, the PWHA’s senior vice-president of hockey operations, echoed Kasten’s sentiments.
“We’ve done everything we could in six months to get a professional league up and running, to have a place where these women can be treated professionally every day,” said Hefford. “People in Ottawa want to cheer for their home team and they have a home team. It doesn’t matter that they don’t have a team name right now or a logo. They’ve got Ottawa across their chest. And I can say from the player’s perspective, they want to play for the city. They want to represent their city, and they’re not concerned about a logo at this point. Do we want to get there? Of course. But you know, I think right now we have a chance to build the brand of this league. We have this fantastic brand, this logo and we want people to know who we are as a league, and those things will come.”
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Ottawa held a 10-4 edge in shots in the scoreless opening period, thanks in part to having the only three power-play opportunities.
Forward Gabbie Huges was Desbiens’ most frequent victim in the first 20 minute segment as she led the home side with three shots.
Desbiens came up big again early in the second period, first with a save off Scamurra from a scramble and a couple of minutes later with a strong blocker stop off Grant-Mentis.
Montreal coach Korie Cheverie started her post-game press conference by thanking Ottawa “for the amazing show” it put on.
“It was phenomenal to be a part of that,” she said. “All the lights in the stands, and we kind of joked about our players getting booed … we all laughed about it as well because it was probably the first time that’s ever happened to them.”
Ottawa’s next two games are on the road — in Boston on Jan. 8 and Toronto Jan. 13 — before returning home to host Minnesota on Jan. 17 at 7 p.m..
The lower bowl at TD Place is already sold out for the Minnesota game.
dbrennan@postmedia.com
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