🏆 The Results are In!
4️⃣ Fourth Playoff Spot Winner: Ottawa Charge ⚡
👑 First Place Winner: Montreal Victoire ⚜️
🌟 Gold Plan Winner: Vancouver Goldeneyes 🦆
But how did we get here?
Table of Contents
🏆 Maybe the real Walter Cup was the friends we made along the way.
The final day of the PWHL was a whirlwind!
The Boston Fleet briefly gained first place while completing their second consecutive season series sweep of the New York Sirens!
The Ottawa Charge managed to clinch the fourth and final playoff spot while the Toronto Sceptres missed out on the playoffs for the first time in team history!
The Vancouver Goldeneyes defeated the Minnesota Frost and won the Gold Plan and the first overall draft pick!
The Montreal Victoire clinched first place and the ability to choose their opponent in a shootout thriller against the Seattle Torrent!
While there was a lot to celebrate, especially for the Ottawa Charge, the Vancouver Goldeneyes, and the Montreal Victoire, the day was heartbreaking for the Toronto Sceptres and the Seattle Torrent.
As a Torrent fan, I knew I should have been sad walking out of Climate Pledge Arena, but I just felt so hype. Yeah, it kinda sucked that we lost, but what I would remember was taking my friend Luke to his first torrent game. I would remember watching PWHL that morning with my friends while eating crème brûlée French toast. I realized that some of my friends who didn’t even like hockey before this season had fallen in love with the Torrent in just a few months.
Maybe the real Walter Cup was the friends we made along the way.🫶 Thank you all for being here.
Watch my quadruple header gameday vlog 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈❤️👇
🏳️⚧️ I Love Sold-Out Torrent Pride Night! 🏳️🌈
I was born in the right generation because I love sold-out Torrent Pride night.👇
I think about this interview with Marie-Philip Poulin a lot.
I’ve always been the hockey player, can’t get out, and all of a sudden people connect with you because guess what? I have a wife. And I can be myself.
It just makes me so happy, not only for fans, but for the players, that we can all celebrate Pride so loudly and create this amazing place where everybody can be themselves. Even though we root for different teams, there’s so much respect for players throughout the league. It felt so fitting that Marie-Philip Poulin could return to the Victoire lineup during this sold-out Pride game!
When there’s gay hockey at the function 👀👇
Keep Reading!
🗳️ Vote on the Semifinal Livestream!
Introducing this month’s livestream special guest: not kate sports! Kate is a women’s sports content creator based in CT who talks about basketball, F1, and hockey in a super funny and down-to-Earth way. We vibed instantly as soon as we met and I had so much fun watching the Madison Square Garden PWHL game with her. Check out her amazing PWHL vlog here!
I do monthly livestreams for my paid subscribers but this month I will be doing two livestreams, one for the semifinals and one for the finals! Please vote on which game you would like me to stream!
Which semifinal game should I stream?
Our reaction when they put CJ in:
Upgrade your subscription to attend monthly livestream watch parties! Support me so that I can continue making women’s hockey content. ($5 per month)
My new goal is to hit 100 paid subscribers, and we already have 55. Do you think we can make it?
Paid subscribers will also receive a 365 Hockey Girl sticker and zine in the mail! 🎉
🌠 Saturday’s Quadruple Header Recap
📺 Quadruple header results
Sat, Apr 25: Boston shuts out New York 4-0; Aerin Frankel caps off an amazing season!
📍 Lowell
The Sirens came out really strong, outshooting the Fleet 16-1 in the first period. The Fleet broke through in the third period, scoring 4 unanswered goals to temporarily claim first place, placing pressure on the Victoire to win their game later that day. The Fleet have now swept the Sirens in two straight seasons. (The last time the Sirens defeated the Fleet was during the inaugural season). Aerin Frankel earned her 8th shutout of the season! 🤯
Watch the game highlights.
Sat, Apr 25: Ottawa shuts out Toronto 3-0; Charge clinches the final playoff spot!
📍 Ottawa
I loved the call that Daniella Ponticelli made at the end of this game: “They did it with Irwin, they’re doing it for MacLeod”. Haley Irwin is currently the interim coach of the Ottawa Charge as head coach Carla MacLeod is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. After the Charge won, MacLeod joined the team on the bench and it was so special to see everybody celebrate with her, even players from the Sceptres coming up to give her a hug.
Gwyneth Philips was absolutely unreal, making a 41-save shutout. This especially wild once you realize that the last time these two teams met, Philips made a 42-save shutout, so Philips has now made 83 consecutive saves against the Sceptres🤯 Fanuza Kadirova scored the game-winning goal for the Charge.
Watch the game highlights.
Sat, Apr 25: Vancouver defeats Minnesota 4-3 in OT; Vancouver win the Gold Plan!
📍 Vancouver
As a Torrent fan hoping to win Gold Plan, this was a stressful one to watch. Marlène Boissonnault made her PWHL debut in goal for the Minnesota Frost. The Goldeneyes got a 3-1 lead, scoring 3 times on only 6 shots 😭. The Frost battled back to tie this game up and take it to OT. Sophie Jaques scored the game-winning goal for the Goldeneyes!
Sat, Apr 25: Montreal defeats Seattle 2-1 in shootouts; Montreal clinches 1st place!
📍 Seattle
This might be the most fun I’ve ever had at a Torrent game which is saying a lot! Sometimes I get caught up trying to make content, but on Saturday I was just locked in as a hockey fan. This was my first time getting to see Victoire play Torrent. This was so special to me because Victoire was my favorite team before Seattle got a team. This game was so physical from puck drop, and I ascended when Alex Carpenter scored the game-tying goal! We all stood up and cheered with every save that Corinne Schroeder in the shootout.
Thank you Torrent for an amazing inaugural season. ❤️
📈 Final Standings
x= playoff spot clinched, MAX = max points (PTS + 3*GR), GP= games played, GR= games remaining, PTS=points (determines standings), W=Win (3 points), OTW=overtime win (2 points), OTL=overtime loss(1 point), L=loss (0 points), PCT=points percentage, GF=goals for, GF=goals against.
The top four teams make the playoffs. Read my explanations of standings.
Fourth Playoff Spot Winner: Ottawa Charge ⚡
First Place Winner: Montreal Victoire ⚜️; Victoire has chosen the Minnesota Frost as their first-round playoff opponent.
Gold Plan Winner: Vancouver Goldeneyes 🦆
Gold Plan standings: Goldeneyes and Torrent were tied with 5 gold plan points each but the Goldeneyes won the tiebreaker (combined overtime and shootout wins after elimination)
🗓️ This week’s schedule
🪑 I’m sat for the PWHL playoffs!
Who am I rooting for? Anybody but the Frost. (All love to Frost fans but I want somebody else to win.) I’ll be returning to my roots as a Montreal Victoire fan for these playoffs.
After Victoire clinched first place and the ability to choose their opponent, I made a video explaining why I thought the Victoire should pick the third seed Minnesota Frost (2X defending Walter Cup Champions) over the fourth seed Ottawa Charge:
Victoire’s head-to-head record against the Frost is really good
Victoire won all 4 matchups this year
2 regulation wins, 2 OT wins, 2 shutouts
Victoire doesn’t want to play Gwyneth Philips again
Philips was a brick wall in the playoffs last year and is coming off of a 41-save shutout against the Sceptres
Despite this reasoning, I wasn’t sure if they would ACTUALLY DO IT. Shortly after I posted this video, the PWHL posted that the Victoire chose the Frost😲 I’M LITERALLY SAT! 🪑 365 WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.
The matchups: #1 Montreal chooses #3 Minnesota; #2 Boston vs #4 Ottawa
I’m so excited! Regardless of the head-to-head, picking Minnesota Frost takes a lot of courage. Meanwhile, Charge actually won their season series against the Fleet and the U.S. goaltending duel between Gwyneth Philips and Aerin Frankel is going to be epic!
I briefly discussed the main storylines for each team in the playoffs this year. I will release a full PWHL semifinals guide on Wednesday! See you then!
Check out my media kit and reach out to me at [email protected]!