Thanksgiving weekend in Boston and Montreal’s home ice debut
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) regular season schedule continues this weekend and we’re thankful for hockey! A pair of doubleheaders are on tap including the home debut for the expansion Montreal Force who expect more than 2,000 fans in attendance when they host the Metropolitan Riveters on Saturday. First place is also on the line this weekend in Boston as the Pride welcome the Toronto Six and will be holding a Thanksgiving food drive on Saturday.
Here’s a closer look at more of what’s in store for puck drop.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26, 2022
2:30 PM ET –Metropolitan Riveters (1-2-0) vs Montreal Force (1-1-0)
(ESPN+ & TSN.ca with Josh Eastern and Alexis Pearson, TVA Sports 2)
Another new chapter in PHF history will be written in Montreal when the expansion Force make their home debut and play the first ever PHF games in the province of Quebec. The league’s newest team takes on one of the Founding Four franchises in the Metropolitan Riveters who picked up their first win of the season at home against the PHF’s other Canadian unit, beating Toronto 6-3 last Saturday. The Force’s single victory this season came in their season opener, defeating Buffalo in a dramatic eight-round shootout on Nov. 5. Forward Jade Downie-Landry is the club’s early-season scoring leader with three points, and is one of six Force to score their first career PHF goals on opening weekend. She produced points in both games, as did defender Kaity Howarth whose two assists lead the team’s blue line. Sarah Bujold is fresh off a breakout weekend of her own. The PHF’s first star of the week leads the club with five points including four goals and one assist, meanwhile Kelly Babstock and Madison Packer also found the net twice in the team’s first win.
7:00 PM ET – Toronto Six (3-1-0) vs Boston Pride (4-0-0)
(ESPN+, TSN.ca with Josh Eastern and Erica Ayala)
The stakes are always high between Boston and Toronto and this early season matchup is no exception. The Pride currently have a hold on first place in the overall standings with four wins and 11 points, while the Six are right on their heels with three wins and eight points. A series win for T6 would be a statement not only in the standings but as a source of redemption after falling to the Pride 6-2 and 5-1 in two-straight Isobel Cup semifinals despite holding the higher seed. The teams split last season’s head-to-head with three of the four games requiring extra time. Boston’s Christina Putigna scored the shootout winner in a 2-1 triumph at Warrior Ice Arena on December 4, and Toronto won a pair of overtime thrillers at home March 12-13 with heroics from Breanne Wilson-Bennett and Shiann Darkangelo. The Pride also produced a lopsided 8-2 win over Toronto on Dec. 5 powered by a three-point performance from Jillian Dempsey who currently leads the club with four points. She’ll be aided by the return of Rivalry Series competitors Loren Gabel, Élizabeth Giguère, and Becca Gilmore who will try and match the offensive flair of Toronto top scorer Brittany Howard who represented Canada at the 2019 event.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 27, 2022
2:00 PM ET – Metropolitan Riveters vs Montreal Force
(ESPN+ & TSN.ca with Josh Eastern and Alexis Pearson, TVA Sports)
2:00 PM ET – Toronto Six vs Boston Pride
(ESPN+, TSN.ca with David Gascon and Erica Ayala)
LE TOUR DE FORCE BEGINS
It’s the first of six home weekends for the Force who will showcase professional women’s hockey across the province of Québec to celebrate their inaugural season. Saturday’s game will be played at Centre 21.02, the team’s training facility based at the Verdun Auditorium, while Sunday’s game takes place at Montreal’s Aréna Raymond-Bourque. Subsequent matchups will be played at Aréna Conrad-Parent in Sept-Îles (December 3-4 vs Connecticut), Colisée Financière Sun Life in Rimouski (January 7-8 vs Toronto), Centre Premier Tech in Rivière-du-Loup (January 21-22 vs Boston), Aréna régional de la Rivière-du-Nord in Saint-Jérôme (February 4-5 vs Minnesota), and Pavillon de la jeunesse in Québec (February 25-26 vs Buffalo).
Prior to Saturday’s game, the Force will celebrate the University of Montreal Carabins women’s soccer team who captured their first U SPORTS national championship with a 1-0 win over the University of Laval on Nov. 13. The squad will perform the game’s ceremonial faceoff.
REPRESENTING LA BELLE PROVINCE
15 of the 22 members on the Force are from the province of Quebec which will make these historic weekend games that much more special. In fact, with the team’s first two games held in Montreal it will be a true home game for 12 of the players who grew up either in the city or within an hour’s drive. That list includes Catherine Daoust (Île Bizard), Gabrielle De Serres (Mont-Royal), Deziray De Sousa (Montréal), Marie-Soleil Deschênes (Île Bizard), Christine Deaudelin (Beloeil), Jade Downie-Landry (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu), Maude Gélinas (St-Bruno-de-Montarville), Alexandra Labelle (Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague), Brigitte Laganière (Montréal), Sarah Lefort (Ormstown), Kristina Shanahan (Montréal), and Brooke Stacey (Kahnawake). Ann-Sophie Bettez (Sept-Iles), Tricia Deguire (Sherbrooke), and Catherine Dubois (Québec City) may not be from the Montreal area but will certainly share in the provincial pride.
LEFORT TO SERVE ONE GAME SUSPENSION
Montreal forward Sarah Lefort will serve a one game suspension Nov. 26 when the Force host the Riveters. The supplemental discipline was determined by the PHF Player Safety Committee in review of a checking from behind major penalty and game misconduct assessed Nov. 6 vs Buffalo. The Player Safety Committee reviews all reported major penalties, game misconducts, and match penalties as part of the PHF’s Player Safety Initiative and determines if additional sanctions are warranted in addition to the original infraction.
BIG START FOR BUJOLD
No player in the PHF has had a bigger impact on their team’s offense in the early goings than how Sarah Bujold has contributed to the Riveters. She’s been part of five of the team’s eight goals and has scored half of them on 16 total shots which represents a shooting percentage of .250. Interestingly, all four of her goals have been scored on special teams, including two shorthanded and two on the power play. To put the hot start in perspective, six special team goals was the high across the PHF during the 2021-22 campaign. Rebecca Russo led the Riveters with five scored on the PP, and Madison Packer had two PP and two SHG over 20 games.
BREAK GIVES TEJRALOVA A BOOST
Aneta Tejralová returned to the Boston blue line last week with some added confidence having represented Czechia in the Euro Hockey Tour while the PHF regular season schedule was on pause. The Olympian picked up her first two PHF points in her fourth career game, both assists, in Saturday’s 5-4 overtime win against Minnesota. It could be a sign of things to come for the 26-year-old who led Russia’s women’s league in scoring among defenders with 46 points in 36 games last season.
VANISOVA BACK IN BOSTON
T6 forward Tereza Vanišová scored twice in three games for Czechia at the Euro Hockey Tour and kept her offensive game going strong in her return to the PHF last weekend by recording her first career three-point performance. She scored a goal and two assists in Sunday’s 5-2 win over the Riveters in her fourth game played with Toronto after suiting up for nine total games with Boston over two seasons. This weekend will be her first game against the team she helped win back-to- back Isobel Cup titles.
FAMILIAR FOES
Even though they have never played in PHF competition, there is no shortage of familiarity between Metropolitan and Montreal heading into this weekend’s matchup. Sarah Bujold was a U SPORTS star for St. Francis Xavier and regularly faced Montreal’s Marie-Soleil Deschênes (UPEI) and Kaity Howarth (St. Mary’s) in AUS conference competition. Also in U SPORTS, newly acquired Riveters forward Kennedy Ganser won a national championship with the University of Alberta in 2017, beating a McGill Martlets team in double overtime that included current Force goaltender Tricia Deguire, forward Jade Downie-Landry, and head coach Peter Smith. In NCAA, Riveters defender Reagan Rust won a Beanpot title with Boston University in 2019 alongside Force forward Deziray De Sousa, Riveters forward Kendall Cornine played together with Force defender Taylor Baker at Rochester IOT, and new Rivs goaltender Eveliina Mäkinen was a brief teammate of Force defender Catherine Daoust at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Amanda Pelkey will also surely recognize many of the Force players she faces this weekend having competed against the Montreal chapter of the PWHPA the past three seasons.
In this weekend’s other matchup, the rivalry between Boston and Toronto is largely fueled by returning talent. 10 current members of the Pride have been part of both Isobel Cup titles that included elimination games over the Six. That group features McKenna Brand, Sammy Davis, Jillian Dempsey, Kaleigh Fratkin, Lauren Kelly, Meghara McManus, Christina Putigna, Jenna Rheault, Lovisa Selander, and Taylor Wenczkowski. Seven current members of T6 have been part of the team since its inception and are extra motivated to flip the script including Brooke Boquist, Elaine Chuli, Shiann Darkangelo, Lindsay Eastwood, Breanne Wilson-Bennett, Emma Woods, and Taylor Woods. Tereza Vanišová of course will experience the rivalry from the T6 side having come over from Boston, and is one of two Czechia players on Toronto along with Dominika Lásková who will face their national teammate in Pride defender Aneta Tejralová. Toronto’s Brittany Howard and Alexis Woloschuk played in the PWHPA with Boston forward Loren Gabel, while last year in the NCAA it was T6 forward Lexi Templeman and her Ohio State Buckeyes who got the best of Boston’s Corinne Schroeder (Quinnipiac) in the regionals and Élizabeth Giguère (UMD) in the Frozen Four final.
CREASE CUTS
Corinne Schroeder has started and won all four games for Boston including a record three-straight shutouts to launch her professional career. She currently holds a league-leading goals-against-average of 1.00 and save percentage of .972. If Elaine Chuli gets the call for Toronto, she’s yet to play a regular season game at Warrior Ice Arena after missing last season’s trip due to illness. She’s won twice in three games this season with a 3.30 GAA and .875 SV%. T6 can also turn to Carly Jackson who won her first start with the team on Sunday, and in two appearances has a GAA of 1.59 and SV% of .935. Newcomer Rachel McQuigge has started all three games for the Riveters and boasts a 3.35 GAA and .907 SV% that ranks fourth overall. Montreal split the goaltending duties in their opening weekend between Tricia Deguire (30/34) and Marie-Soleil Deschênes (15/18).
STATS SNAPSHOT
Toronto’s Brittany Howard leads the PHF with five goals and six points in four games, followed by teammates Leah Lum and Emma Woods who both have five points, and Sarah Bujold who leads the Riveters with five points in three games. Jillian Dempsey leads Boston with four points in four games, and Jade Downie-Landry is Montreal’s top point producer with three. Howard also leads the way with 18 shots on goal followed by Bujold and Boston’s Sammy Davis each with 16. Ann-Sophie Bettez and Kaity Howarth are tied for the Force lead with seven. Boston defender Kali Flanagan holds the league-lead with a plus-minus rating of plus-5, and Jenna Rheault leads the way with eight shot blocks. Top faceoff performers in action this week with over 10 wins include the Riveters Kelly Babstock (.581), Montreal’s Alyssa Holmes (.571), Toronto’s Breanne Wilson-Bennett (.556), and Boston’s Taylor Wenczkowski (.531).
MAKING THE CASE FOR WOMEN’S PRO HOCKEY
Commissioner Reagan Carey was a guest columnist for Sportico this week, submitting a piece titled ‘Making the case for women’s pro hockey means showing the work’. She writes about return on investment and how the PHF is presenting a tangible, not speculative case for growth. Click here to read the full article. Carey also recently reflected on opening weekend and what’s next for the PHF in a conversation with Eleni Demestihas for The IX that you can find here, plus a Boardroom Q&A with Shlomo Sprung that can be read here.
Fans in the United States can enjoy live PHF action all season long exclusively on ESPN+ for just $9.99 a month (or $99.99 per year) at ESPN.com, ESPNplus.com or on the ESPN App (mobile and connected devices). In Canada, live coverage of the PHF is available to TSN subscribers through the network’s five television feeds as well as live streaming via TSN.ca and the TSN app. PHF games that are part of the ESPN International distribution network may be available in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa via ESPN Player, in Latin America via Star+, the Caribbean through ESPN Player via the ESPN App, and Oceania through Watch ESPN via the ESPN App. All Montreal Force games are available in French exclusively on TVA Sports.
Cover photo by Mike Hetzel / Buffalo Beauts
