Matchday Recap: S01D12
Matchday 12 arrived like a freight train with no brakes—six fights before the first period of the opening game had even finished, a pair of shootout thrillers, and no fewer than four upsets scattered across the slate. Pour yourself something warm, mes amis, because we have a lot of ground to cover.
JBG 5 — MTL 3
Die Goue Myn was already on fire before the puck had been skating for two minutes. Thabo Mokoena rattled Élodie Gagnon with the body at 1:20, Gagnon answered back on Sipho Nkosi nine seconds later, and then—inevitably—the two of them were throwing hands at center ice by 1:31. The period barely had time to breathe before Alexandre Paquette and Lindiwe Sithole added a second fight at 5:37. Six penalties in the opening frame, and somehow four goals too: Zanele Ndaba opened the scoring off a Pieter Botha assist just seconds after the first bout, Philippe Dubois tied it on the power play, Jean-François Tremblay put Montréal ahead, and Kagiso Molefe leveled it again at 2-2. Quel match, and we hadn't even seen the middle portion yet.
The second period calmed down precisely zero percent. Chloé Moreau put the Maples back in front with a beauty at 1:23, but Molefe buried his second of the night at 5:03 and Thabo Mokoena gave Johannesburg the lead at 12:05—all while Paquette and Mandla Zulu, then Paquette again with Lerato Dlamini, sorted out their differences the traditional way. The Maples entered the third down 4-3 and never recovered. Mokoena sealed it with his second at 14:42, assisted by Nkosi, who'd spent part of the first period in the box.
This was a significant upset—Johannesburg priced at +199 (2.99 home win odds) against Montréal who came in as heavy -250 favorites. Molefe and Mokoena each finished with two goals, and Lindiwe Sithole's two assists through the chaos were the quiet backbone of the Jaguars' victory. C'est incroyable what this team can do at home.
RIM 3 — MUM 4
The Coastal Pavilion got exactly what it paid for: a grinding, punch-it-out affair that needed five periods to settle. Mumbai came in as the betting favorite at 1.61 and ultimately justified those odds, but Rimini made them work every single minute for it.
Aditya Rao opened the scoring on a late power play goal in the first—Luca Ferretti in the box being the culprit. The second period saw Rimini level things through Marco Rossetti, before Divya Mehta pushed Mumbai back ahead. Ferretti and Rahul Nair had their own conversation at 10:55, then Davide Marchetti and Aditya Rao traded punches at 13:12—Rimini's bench was not a peaceful place. Giulia Bianchi and Elena Moretti both found the net in the third to push the Rinklers level at 3-3, but Divya Mehta—her second of the night—reclaimed the lead for Mumbai at 12:10. Rimini somehow dragged it to overtime.
The extra frame produced two more fights and no goals. Then the shootout, where Vikram Joshi calmly picked the corner at 4:31 to win it. Mehta's two-goal performance was the difference-maker, and Aditya Rao's two fights alongside a goal showed the kind of compete level Mumbai brought all night.
SAO 1 — TOK 0
Blink and you missed the only goal of the night at The Green Canopy—Juliana Santos scored just 25 seconds into the game, assisted by Thiago Pereira, and the São Paulo Serpents spent the next fifty-nine-and-a-half minutes defending that lead with their lives. And their bodies. And occasionally their fists.
The Titans threw everything at the Serpents and generated four fights' worth of frustration across the evening. Mio Kobayashi and Mariana Lima went at it at 3:51 of the first; Yuki Sato and Amanda Barbosa followed them in at 7:28. The second period was all hits and denied opportunities—Rafael Oliveira was a menace with four hits on the night, imposing himself every time Tokyo tried to gain momentum. Thiago Pereira and Aoi Yamamoto added another bout at 5:22 of the middle frame, and Haruto Nakamura and Amanda Barbosa—who was in two fights—closed out the violence at 7:08 of the third.
Twelve penalties across the game, most of them minor infractions from teams desperate to swing the game's momentum. Tokyo couldn't. Santos' goal held. The Serpents came in as slight favorites at 1.81 and delivered with the most economical performance of Matchday 12—one shot, one goal, one win.
VLA 5 — GDL 4
The Last Terminal has seen some commanding performances this season, but what Vladivostok built in the second period—then nearly surrendered in the third—is going to be talked about for a while. The Vodkas entered the middle frame up 2-0 and proceeded to score three goals in the first 103 seconds: Vera Orlova at 1:07, Olga Smirnova at 1:29, Nikita Sorokin at 1:43. Five-nothing. Game over, right?
Wrong. Guadalajara came out of the third-period dressing room like they had nothing to lose—because they didn't. Daniela Salazar and Vera Orlova opened with a fight at 0:11, and before the dust cleared Santiago Torres had scored at 0:39. Sofía Navarro made it 5-2 at 4:46, Artyom Volkov answered her goal with a fight at 5:23, and suddenly the Gatos smelled blood. Diego Hernández scored at 7:21. Rodrigo Vargas buried a power play goal at 10:45 following a Yelena Pavlova penalty. Four Guadalajara goals in one period against a team that was coasting—incroyable.
But 5-4 is how it ended, and Vladivostok held on. Smirnova's two goals and the first-period work of Tatiana Novikova and Orlova proved just enough. Valentina Ramírez's two assists for the Gatos were a consolation that had to sting—so close to the most remarkable comeback of the matchday.
BUS 2 — PRA 3
Prague arrived at The Frozen Dock as clear favorites at 1.61 and left with exactly what was expected—a professional, efficient 3-2 win. What's worth noting is how the Phantoms built it: two goals in the first period from Martin Procházka and Kateřina Dvořáková, both assisted by the exceptional Tomáš Novák, put Prague in the driver's seat before Busan could settle in. Soo-yeon Park pulled one back at 14:18 to make it 2-1 at the first break, offering a sliver of hope.
The second period extinguished it. Eliška Veselá made it 3-1 at 13:26 on a Pavel Krejčí feed, and Busan's deficit felt insurmountable. Jae-won Kim gave the home crowd something to cheer in the third—finishing at 5:16 off a Min-jun Lee assist to make it 3-2—and the Blizzards pushed hard down the stretch. Jakub Černý took a penalty at 13:37 that gave Busan a late power play, but the Phantoms killed it with the confidence of a team in control.
Novák's two-assist night was the engine of Prague's win. Fifteen hits across the game with only one fight tells you this one stayed mostly within the lines—a chess match won by the team that came in better prepared.
STO 4 — DKR 5
This one hurt the hometown faithful at The Still Strait, and the odds made it sting even more. Stockholm was priced at 1.65—strong favorites—and the Dakar Djinns came in as 2.25 underdogs. What unfolded was one of the matchday's most dramatic reversals.
The first period ended level at 1-1. The second period nearly ended the Sirens' hopes entirely: Dakar went up 4-2, scoring twice on the power play—Cheikh Fall at 4:39 and Moussa Ndiaye at 7:43 off Elin Sjöberg's penalty—all while three fights erupted in a nine-minute stretch. Khady Bâ and Viktor Hallberg, Modou Diouf and Maja Forsberg, Freja Sandström and Rokhaya Faye. The temperature inside The Still Strait was anything but.
Then came the Stockholm third period. Astrid Engström—magnificent tonight with two goals—scored at 1:40 and again at 5:40 with Viktor Hallberg assisting the second, and just like that it was 4-4. Overtime produced nothing but hits and more tension. The shootout. And Moussa Ndiaye—who had already scored twice in regulation—calmly buried the winner at 4:31 to complete a remarkable night for the Djinns. Ndiaye, Mamadou Guèye with two goals, Cheikh Fall—Dakar's offensive depth was the difference. The upset is recorded.
NRB 6 — HEL 2
Here's your most emphatic upset of Matchday 12. The Helsinki Howlers came to The Ochre Reserve as 1.58 favorites—Nairobi was a 2.40 shot—and they were systematically dismantled in one of the most authoritative performances of the season so far.
Four goals in the first period set the tone. Nyambura Kamau opened the scoring at 4:16, Kevin Otieno made it two, then Peter Kimani—who would finish with two goals—hit the roof with goals at 10:37 and 13:10. The Narwhals were relentless, and Faith Wanjiru's engine work—two assists, three hits—was the connective tissue of everything Nairobi was doing. Helsinki pulled one back through Saara Virtanen in the second, but James Odhiambo's goal at 13:48 restored the four-goal cushion.
A Petteri Salonen goal in the third made it 5-2, before Akinyi Ochieng finished it on a power play at 11:39. Brian Kipchoge's two assists went mostly unnoticed in the context of such a complete team performance, but they shouldn't be. This was a statement win for Nairobi at home, delivered with physicality—19 hits—and finishing. Chapeau to the Narwhals.
ANC 1 — USH 4
Another upset at The Watch Station—Anchorage Auroras, priced at 1.78, fell to the Ushuaia Undertow 4-1 in a game that swung decisively in the second period. The first 15 minutes were a penalty festival: six infractions before a single goal was scored, with Kira Naluktaq heading to The Sixth twice before the period was out. Bryce Denison finally broke the deadlock at 9:51 for Anchorage, and it looked like the home side might hold that advantage into the break.
They couldn't. Luciana Romero leveled it at 14:19 of the second with a Matías Fernández assist, and then Florencia Ramos put Ushuaia in front with barely a second left on the clock—14:59. That goal deflated the Auroras completely. Facundo Álvarez made it 3-1 just 53 seconds into the third, and Valentina Giménez—who also spent time in the box and dropped gloves with Carlos Medina—added a fourth at 12:37 to close it out.
The Undertow's scoring was spread across four different players, which tells you everything about how well-balanced this Ushuaia side is. Romero's goal-and-assist was the standout line. Anchorage will want to forget those nine penalty minutes in a hurry.
PER 3 — WPG 4
The Red Furnace burned bright and long—overtime required—and it was the Winnipeg Wendigos who left with two points in a back-and-forth thriller priced nearly even (Perth at 1.92, Winnipeg at 1.89). Cooper Hale opened the scoring for Perth in the first and added another in the second, giving him two goals on the night. But Leah Blacksmith was the story of this game—two goals, an assist, two hits, and a fight. She is the Wendigos in miniature: competitive, physical, relentless.
It was 2-2 after two, 3-3 after three, with leads changing hands multiple times. Blacksmith's late fight with Mia Thornton in the third at 13:26 cost both teams five minutes but didn't cost Winnipeg the match. In overtime, Eliza Cartwright and Nicole Flett both picked up penalties—two power plays in extra time, which is a nerve-wracking proposition—before Brody Flett settled the matter at 9:35 with the winner, Blacksmith's linemate Tyler Chicken getting the assist.
Twenty-four hits across the game with only one fight speaks to a controlled but hard-edged contest. Perth will feel the loss keenly—they did so much right. But Winnipeg found a way.
MCM 1 — HAV 2
The final game of the matchday was the quietest—no fights, three goals, seventeen hits—but it delivered the drama in the most compact form possible. The McMurdo Monoliths led 1-0 deep into the third at The Remote Range, Chris Elliot's 13:17 goal in the second standing as the only mark on the board for nearly forty minutes of hockay.
Then Havana struck twice in 13 seconds. Osmany Leyva at 6:35, Claudia Pérez at 6:48—assisted by Yanelis Peña—and the Hammers had turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead in the blink of an eye. McMurdo couldn't recover. The Monoliths pressed through a Natasha Borova penalty late in the third but couldn't solve the Havana netminder.
This was an upset—McMurdo came in at 1.90, Havana at 1.91, essentially a coin flip—but those two quick goals in the third rewrote the story entirely. Priya Anand's crunching check on Leyva at 12:46 suggested McMurdo still wanted it, but wanting it and getting it are different things. Havana leaves Antarctica with two points and one of the more quietly dramatic wins of the night.
Four upsets in one matchday. Two shootouts. A 5-0 lead nearly squandered in Vladivostok. A one-goal game decided 25 seconds in. And somewhere in Johannesburg, Kagiso Molefe and Thabo Mokoena are sharing a quiet smile after beating a team that was supposed to beat them by two and a half goals. That's Hockay, friends. That's why we watch.
Until Matchday 13... bonne nuit.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council notes that Matchday 12 has concluded. Ten games were played. Results were produced. The Council has been informed.