Matchday Recap: S01D22
Ten games, five overtime finishes between regulation and the shootout, four Sixth-dimensional incidents reported league-wide, and more upset results than a bettor's nightmare. Matchday 22 delivered the kind of evening that reminds you why we show up, night after night, to call this magnificent sport. Let's get into it.
RIM 2 — MTL 3
The Coastal Pavilion is never a comfortable road trip, and the Montréal Maples came in as the ever-so-slight underdogs at 1.98—and proved those odds right in the end, but it took everything they had. This game was physical from the opening faceoff, with Marco Rossetti and Philippe Dubois setting the tone in the first minute. It was Luca Ferretti who broke the deadlock at 12:42, finishing neatly off a Giulia Bianchi feed to send Rimini into the first intermission with the lead.
The second period was Montréal's. Simon Côté rifled in a beauty at 11:26—a gorgeous finish that changed the energy in the building entirely—and then, with Sarah-Maude Fortin serving time in The Sixth, Amélie Bouchard buried it on the man advantage at 13:13 with a Dmitri Volkov assist to put the Maples up 2–1. Quel retournement de situation!
Rimini pushed back in the third. Nico De Luca knotted it at 4:04, and then Sofia Barbieri and Jean-François Tremblay dropped the gloves at 11:42—coincidental majors, five and five—before the teams headed to overtime knotted at two. It was Lucas Pelletier who broke Rimini hearts at 8:40 of the extra frame, burying a Jean-René Bergeron feed to seal the road win. An upset, and a hard-earned one. C'est la guerre.
JBG 6 — TOK 0
Die Goue Myn was alive, and the Johannesburg Jaguars were absolutely relentless. The favorites came in at 1.78 and justified every bit of that confidence with a commanding shutout performance. The first period was scoreless but not quiet—Mandla Zulu was a physical menace all night, Aoi Yamamoto and Thandiwe Radebe exchanged punches at the 14-minute mark, and the Jaguars were clearly in command.
Then came the second period, and then came The Sixth. At 9:04, the game paused—that unmistakable flare of sixth-dimensional energy pulling every player off the ice. H.O.R.N. had nothing. Le Permanent Council issued no statement. And then, as if the universe itself had pressed resume, play continued and Mandla Zulu beat the goalie in the same breath the clock restarted. Make of that what you will. Kagiso Molefe then doubled down, scoring twice in quick succession at 9:41 and 11:37—both assisted by Lindiwe Sithole—to make it 4–0 at the second break.
Naledi Khumalo and Sipho Nkosi added goals in the third to complete the rout. Kagiso Molefe was magnificent with two goals, and Lindiwe Sithole ran the play all night. Tokyo had no answer. C'est incroyable, the margin.
VLA 1 — MUM 2
At The Last Terminal, the Mumbai Monsoons came in as the slight favorites at 1.84, and they earned every cent of that billing with a steady, resilient road performance. Vladivostok drew first blood early—Ruslan Kozlov finishing off a Denis Baranov feed at 5:10 of the first—before Rahul Nair took a two-minute trip to The Sixth and the game turned physical. Priya Sharma and Kirill Morozov exchanged fists at 11:26, both heading off with matching majors.
The second period saw The Sixth claim the ice again at the 4:50 mark, and when hockay resumed, the game remained deadlocked. It was Arjun Patil who finally broke through for Mumbai at 10:16, Rohan Deshmukh setting him up beautifully to level the contest.
Third period, Divya Mehta delivered the dagger at 7:46, Kavya Iyer picking up the assist on a composed and clinical finish. Vladivostok pressed but couldn't find the equalizer—Pooja Verma drew a penalty late but the Monsoons held firm. A compact, well-executed road win for Mumbai. Bravo.
SAO 1 — PRA 0
Mon Dieu. If you were looking for goals, The Green Canopy was the wrong arena tonight. But if you were looking for warfare—three fights, seven penalties, twenty hits, and a grinding, teeth-clenching battle that stretched across five full periods—then this was your game. The São Paulo Serpents and Prague Phantoms produced exactly zero regulation goals between them, and somehow that made every single moment feel more consequential.
It started violent and stayed that way. Juliana Santos and Kateřina Dvořáková threw down just seventy-three seconds in. Amanda Barbosa and Barbora Králová followed at 9:32. Pavel Krejčí and Lucas Almeida added a third bout in the second period. Through all of it, both goalies were impenetrable. The third period came and went scoreless. So did overtime.
Into the shootout they went, and it was Thiago Pereira who ended the suspense at 4:31, delivering the winner with the precision of a surgeon. Serpents take it 1–0. For the record, São Paulo entered as the -1.72 favorites, so no upset here—just forty-plus minutes of the most physically intense scoreless hockay you'll see this season.
STO 5 — GDL 4
Now this—this was entertainment. The Still Strait hosted a nine-goal overtime thriller, and the result qualifies as an upset: the Guadalajara Gatos came in as the favorites at 1.69 and left empty-handed. The Stockholm Sirens, priced at 2.19, took full advantage.
Albin Nordlund opened the scoring at 0:17—seventeen seconds in, top shelf, and the crowd barely had time to sit down. Guadalajara responded through Emilio Delgado on the power play, but Freja Sandström restored the Sirens' lead before the first was out. The second period was delirious—four goals, a lead change, and Saga Ekström and Sofía Navarro dropping the gloves at the final buzzer. Albin Nordlund, Freja Sandström, and Daniela Salazar (twice for Guadalajara) all scored. Heading to the third, Stockholm led 4–3.
Santiago Torres tied it early in the third, setting up what felt inevitable: overtime. And at 1:24 of the extra frame, Nordlund completed his hat trick with a Filip Nyström assist—a championship-caliber finish on a championship-caliber performance. Three goals for Nordlund, two goals and an assist for Freja Sandström. Quel joueur. Quel match.
BUS 3 — HEL 2
The Frozen Dock was a war zone. Three fights in the third period alone, a Sixth-dimensional pull midway through the second, eight total penalties, and a partisan crowd that didn't stop screaming. And yet the Busan Blizzards—upset victors at 1.97 against the 1.84 Helsinki Howlers—were the ones left celebrating.
Seung-ho Jung opened the scoring with a spectacular mid-air bat at 13:41 of the first. The Sixth swallowed both teams in the second period, and when play resumed, Juhani Rantanen equalized for Helsinki at 10:25. Then the third period erupted: Min-jun Lee and Saara Virtanen, then Sang-hoon Bae and Erik Johansson, then Liisa Nieminen and Yuna Kang—three separate fights inside four and a half minutes. Jenni Laine put Helsinki ahead at 11:01, but Jae-won Kim answered immediately at 12:17 to send it to overtime.
Yuna Kang—who had just finished trading punches—delivered the winner at 4:11 of overtime, assisted by Sang-hoon Bae, her dance partner from earlier in the night. What a character. What a game. C'est incroyable.
ANC 3 — DKR 1
Another upset at The Watch Station, where the Anchorage Auroras—priced as underdogs at 2.05 against the Dakar Djinns at 1.78—came out blazing and never looked back. The first period was extraordinary: two goals in under a minute to open the contest, Mamadou Guèye striking first for Dakar at 0:52, Sierra Peters responding at 1:56, and then Peters capitalizing on the power play at 5:44 off a Kira Naluktaq assist to put Anchorage up 2–1 before the game was five minutes old.
Dakar had chances—Aminata Sow was physical and disruptive throughout—but Kira Naluktaq made it 3–1 with a mid-air bat finish in the second, and from there Anchorage managed the game with discipline. The third period was all physicality, no scoring, Anchorage content to protect their lead on home ice.
Sierra Peters was the story of the night: two goals, a power-play marker, and that relentless north-south game the Auroras rely on. Well earned.
NRB 6 — WPG 3
The Nairobi Narwhals came in as favorites at 1.74, and they delivered. What they delivered in the first period specifically was a four-goal explosion at The Ochre Reserve that effectively ended the contest before the first intermission. Nyambura Kamau opened at 2:31. Amara Osei added one at 9:07. James Odhiambo scored twice before the period was out—at 11:05 and 14:20—and through it all, penalties were flying in both directions.
Winnipeg clawed back a little dignity with a Curtis Favel power play goal early in the second and two more in a lively third period from Jake Fehr and Jonas Brevik, but Nairobi had already banked too much. Peter Kimani added a power play goal in the second, Amara Osei his second of the night in the third. The final was 6–3, and it wasn't as close as that sounds.
Amara Osei—two goals, one assist—was the engine. James Odhiambo's two-goal first period set the tone. The Wendigos, dealing with penalty trouble all night (eleven total minutes between both clubs), never recovered from that first-period avalanche.
MCM 3 — USH 4
The Remote Range has seen some things. Tonight it witnessed the McMurdo Monoliths—favored at 1.69—fall in a shootout to the Ushuaia Undertow at 2.18, a legitimate upset in every sense of the word. Yumi Takeda gave McMurdo the lead inside two minutes. Valentina Giménez equalized almost immediately. Florencia Ramos converted a power play to put Ushuaia up 2–1 before the first was out. Back and forth, relentless.
Ushuaia extended to 3–1 through Matías Fernández in the second. Then McMurdo mounted a genuine comeback: Elena Varga at 1:25 of the third, Yumi Takeda completing her brace at 13:34—quel match retour—to force overtime. The extra frame produced no goals despite McMurdo penalty trouble.
Into the shootout, and Camila Aguirre delivered the decisive moment at 8:31, ending what was a thoroughly entertaining, exhausting, emotionally draining contest. Yumi Takeda was magnificent with two goals for the hosts. It wasn't enough. Ushuaia take the two points and leave McMurdo wondering what might have been.
PER 1 — HAV 3
The Havana Hammers came into The Red Furnace as underdogs at 2.07—another upset on an upset-heavy matchday. They wasted little time establishing control, Osmany Leyva finishing off a Yarelys González setup at 6:40 of the first, and Lisandra Álvarez doubling the lead at 14:27 to take a commanding 2–0 advantage into the dressing room.
The second period saw The Sixth arrive at 8:44—the ice went quiet, as those moments always make it, and when play resumed Perth could find no way through despite Liam O'Brien being an absolute force physically, with multiple hits and a penalty that cost his team dearly. The score remained 2–0 through forty minutes.
Perth found a spark in the third—Gemma Fletcher converting on the power play at 4:16 after a Lázaro Valdés penalty—but Yarelys González extinguished any comeback hopes at 14:59 with a stunning bat finish off a Yanelis Peña feed. Yarelys González—a goal and an assist on the night—was the difference-maker. A clean, professional road performance from Havana. Bien joué.
Matchday 22 gave us five overtime results, four Sixth incidents—each one as unexplained and unsettling as the last—and five genuine upsets that reshuffled standings all across the league. We are in the thick of the season now, friends, and every game matters. I'll be back on the call for Matchday 23. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 22 occurred. Five upset results have been recorded. Four sixth-dimensional incidents remain under review. The status of the review process is also under review.