The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) fandom was anxiously hitting the refresh button on their browser last night just before 7:30 PM to be the first to find out who Toronto had chosen to play the Semi-Final Round of the Playoffs against. The reveal video did not disappoint, as captain Blayre Turnbull and alternates Renata Fast and Jocelyne Larocque appeared speaking in turn and telling us about the selection process. Then Fast added, “We collaborated as players and as staff and we’re very excited to select…” and the camera cut to Natalie Spooner and her son Rory. The league’s top scorer asked him to throw a ball in the basket of “his choice” and that’s how we found out Toronto would be playing Minnesota in the first round while Montreal would be battling it out with Boston.
Related: PWHL Minnesota’s Missed Chances Nearly Cost Them Their Postseason
This will be another Marie-Philip Poulin vs Hilary Knight duel, both women have done so much for women’s hockey that it seems like it was meant to be. I can’t seem to remember…where have I seen those two cities play each other in the playoffs? Oh yeah! It’s only one of the biggest rivalries in the NHL, move over men, PWHL Montreal will be glad to step in for you as the only Montreal hockey team to have made the playoffs. Here’s what captain Poulin had to say about it:
“It’s pretty exciting. Montreal is quite the city to be in in terms of sports, very excited to be here. Obviously, the Habs are out, the Rocket is out, and we’re very lucky to be able to play in Place Bell and to be able to be there. So obviously, Thursday cannot come quick enough. We’re very excited to start the playoffs soon in Montreal, and going against Boston is going to be very exciting.”
As for the possibility of being the first coach to bring a professional hockey league’s championship to Montreal since 1993, Kori Cheverie had this to say:
“Wow, that something I’m sure any coach in Montreal doesn’t take lightly. You know, it’s really been an amazing experience living in Montreal and seeing the type of support that each team has for each other. So, to be able to bring a championship back to Montreal, I think it would be celebrated by all the teams, and it would be something truly exciting for our fans and for the city. We hope the same success for every other team that plays in Montreal as well, you know, I can only assume that they’re rooting us on and hoping for us in the way that we, if they were still in the playoffs and in contention, would be doing the same as well. I think that there’s a lot of love in this city for sports and all the teams and I’m really happy our team gets to be a part of that.”
Learning about how Toronto came to their decision was interesting, general manager Gina Kingsbury didn’t take it lightly. She consulted her staff, the coach, and the leadership group and then, to coach Troy Ryan’s surprise, she put the question to the whole team. I’ll admit I was also surprised by that. A few weeks ago, I interviewed PWHL Montreal’s Erin Andrews and I asked her if she thought, if it came to that, that she’d be consulted about that choice. She took about a second to say no, because they had staff to study that question and make the best decision. As for what went into the decision, Kingsbury explained:
“You know the process started a long time ago, when we knew the rules I guess, and when we clinched first place, we started those discussions already. […] There’s no easy opponent in this league and we looked at all the different angles. […] We leaned on our athletes you know, just their feelings and how they felt about those opponents we got to choose from. I obviously looked at analytics and how we matched up against these teams throughout the season. You want to also look at the more recency of the team, and how they’re doing at this time; are they healthy, are they banged up? Travel came into play, what did that look like? Where do we feel comfortable traveling to, all different angles that you have to look at from a program’s perspective and we weigh everything in, and as I mentioned, it wasn’t an easy decision. Minnesota wasn’t the lead in this right away, in the end, we had to choose between Boston and Minnesota and we went for what seemed to have a little bit more pros than cons.”
Toronto will start its series against Minnesota on Wednesday night and Montreal will host Boston for the first game on Thursday night. Throughout both series, all games will be starting at 7 PM, except for any game played in Minnesota, which will be starting at 8 PM in the Eastern Time Zone, so 7 PM local time.