Matchday Recap: S01D31
Matchday 31 had range. From a 1-0 defensive grind at The South Passage to a 10-goal slugfest at The Remote Range, from a shootout settled by a single Elina Heikkinen stride to overtime winners in two separate buildings—tonight asked a lot of the league and the league delivered. Four upsets. Three games decided after sixty minutes. On y va.
HAV 1 — MTL 3
The Rhythm Bureau is not a building that invites calm hockey, and Matchday 31 had no interest in offering any. The Havana Hammers were favored at 1.74 on home ice. The Montréal Maples, at 2.11, left with three goals and a road win. Quel renversement.
Three fights in the first period alone set the atmosphere: Sarah-Maude Fortin and Lázaro Valdés, Osmany Leyva and Dmitri Volkov, Adonis Reyes and Élodie Gagnon—all matching majors, all sending pairs to The Sixth. Twelve penalties in total across the evening. And through all of it, the first period ended scoreless.
The second finally produced goals. Valdés cashed in on the power play at 3:16 with Claudia Pérez assisting. But then Lázaro Valdés took a minor at 8:39—and Montréal's Catherine Lavoie punished him immediately, a power play strike at 10:16 with Amélie Bouchard setting it up. One apiece.
Fifty-three seconds into the third, Élodie Gagnon—who'd fought her way through that first period—put Montréal ahead with Dmitri Volkov assisting. They held firm until 11:50, when Volkov buried a power play goal of his own, Yordanis Sánchez having gone to The Sixth moments before. Three-one, Volkov with a goal and an assist after fighting in the first. The road side took everything The Rhythm Bureau had.
MCM 6 — PER 4
The Remote Range hosted the closest thing to a coin flip on the board—McMurdo Monoliths at 1.90, Perth Pyres at 1.91—and produced ten goals across three periods to justify the uncertainty. In the end, McMurdo had the better back half.
The first period was a blur of penalties and quick goals. Oscar Whitfield put Perth ahead at 2:41 off a Riley Dawson feed. Jack Mitchell and Diego Fuentes both took penalties, and Ji-hoon Baek converted on the advantage to level it for McMurdo—then Lars Henriksen immediately made it 2-1. Callum Reeves answered for Perth at 13:21 with Cooper Hale assisting. Two-two at the first horn, despite a late Sienna Kapoor penalty.
The second period belonged to Amira Hassan in an invisible way—she didn't score, but she was threading everything. Diego Fuentes buried her pass at 12:54 to give McMurdo a 3-2 lead they'd take into the third.
Fuentes struck again at 2:36 in the third, Henriksen assisting this time. Tobias Frey extended it to 5-2 at 6:34—Hassan with another helper. Perth refused to fold: Liam O'Brien and Zara Patel scored in quick succession off Oscar Whitfield assists, pulling it to 5-4. Then Frey sealed it at 12:21, Hassan picking up her third assist of the game. A big night for McMurdo's supporting cast.
USH 1 — WPG 0
One goal. Eight hits. The South Passage at its most uncompromising. The Winnipeg Wendigos came to Ushuaia as 1.86 favorites and were shut out entirely—the Ushuaia Undertow, at 1.95, winning on a single Julieta Ríos finish. C'est tout. C'est assez.
The first period was the scene of Jake Fehr (Winnipeg) and Florencia Ramos (Ushuaia) dropping the gloves at 5:53—coincidental majors—and not much else. Two further Wendigos penalties—Curtis Favel and Tyler Chicken—gave Ushuaia opportunities they didn't need to cash; the game was going to be won another way.
The second period's decisive moment came at 13:18. Jonas Brevik had checked Julieta Ríos moments before then taken a penalty for the trouble. Ríos, freshly inconvenienced and clearly unimpressed, finished off an Agustín Medina feed and that was your game. One shot, one goal, one less thing to discuss.
The third period was about Ushuaia not letting Winnipeg back in. Camila Aguirre and Leah Blacksmith fought at 11:34—coincidental majors adding to the evening's ledger of frustration—but the scoreboard never moved again. The Undertow defended with discipline and the Wendigos couldn't manufacture anything of substance. An upset that felt increasingly inevitable once Ríos scored.
ANC 3 — NRB 2
Quel match. Overtime. The Nairobi Narwhals came to The Watch Station as 1.78 favorites and played like it for most of regulation. The Anchorage Auroras, listed at 2.05, found a way. It took four periods, but Heather Braund willed it into existence.
Nairobi opened the scoring through Brian Kipchoge at 12:00 of the first—a power play goal off a Faith Wanjiru feed, coming after Kira Naluktaq's penalty and a Cody Tulik–James Odhiambo fight that cleared some of the early tension. The Narwhals looked in control.
Isaiah Tobin leveled it for Anchorage in the second at 9:19, Heather Braund assisting. One-one heading to the third. Tara Alexie then gave the home side the lead at 4:41—Braund with the helper again—but Nyambura Kamau responded at 12:51 with Akinyi Ochieng assisting, and regulation ended tied at two.
Overtime. James Odhiambo took a penalty at 3:20, leaving the Narwhals a man short. Brian Kipchoge—who'd been physical all night with three hits—pushed hard in the other direction but couldn't change things. Mason Kluane found the net at 10:40 with Braund threading her third assist of the game. Three assists, none glamorous, all load-bearing. Anchorage steals two points the oddsmakers didn't give them.
DKR 2 — HEL 3
The Sandy Parlor delivered everything the matchday needed at its midpoint: four fights, a late tying goal, a scoreless overtime, and then Elina Heikkinen deciding the whole thing from the shootout spot. Helsinki Howlers win 3-2 as the slight 1.86 favorites. Dakar Djinns, at 1.95, pushed them to the absolute limit.
The tone was set at 0:30 of the first—Erik Johansson and Ousmane Diallo dropped the gloves before anyone had exhaled. Coincidental majors. Johansson then turned around and assisted Anniina Tuominen's opening goal at 13:45. A strange evening for a fighter-turned-creator.
Dakar flipped it in the second. Khady Bâ equalized at 2:13 off an Awa Diop feed, then Diop bats one out of the air at 5:54—Modou Diouf getting the helper—to put the Djinns ahead 2-1. Two more fights followed: Saara Virtanen and Cheikh Fall, then Ousmane Diallo and Virtanen again, both pairs earning five-and-five. Helsinki was unsettled.
Noora Koskinen settled it in the third. Aminata Sow took a penalty at 10:38, and Koskinen made them pay with a power play goal at 13:34, Petteri Salonen assisting. Two-two, overtime, and then silence—no goals in the extra frame. In the shootout, Heikkinen picked her corner at 6:31 and that was it. A shootout win for the team that looked like losing after forty minutes.
STO 2 — BUS 1
The Still Strait hosted a game that refused to be scored upon for the better part of an hour. The Busan Blizzards came in at 1.77. The Stockholm Sirens sat at 2.07. Overtime, and Maja Forsberg, and another upset. Magnifique.
Two fights in the first period—Dong-wook Yoon and Albin Nordlund matching majors, then Eun-bi Han and Lucas Bredberg coincidental majors—established the physical vocabulary without producing any goals. The second period was similar: a Yoon penalty and relentless hitting from both sides, still nothing on the board.
The third finally opened up. Jae-won Kim put Busan ahead at 5:57 off a Soo-yeon Park pass. Min-jun Lee then took a minor at 11:06 and Astrid Engström converted immediately on the power play—Hugo Wikström with the helper at 11:17. Stockholm tied. More penalties followed, more noise, no more goals.
Overtime lasted under two minutes. Maja Forsberg received a pass from Albin Nordlund—the same Nordlund who'd been fighting in the first period—and put it top shelf at 1:58. Stockholm wins, Busan loses at odds that made this look like a formality. One of those games where the underdog earns every inch and the favorite has to tip the cap.
GDL 5 — PRA 2
El Rincón Perdido saw five fights and thirteen penalties and a Guadalajara Gatos side that somehow grew more composed as the evening turned more chaotic. The Prague Phantoms, who were the aggressors for much of the first period, ran out of answers in the third. Guadalajara wins 5-2 as slight 1.88 favorites.
Three fights in the first period: Tomáš Novák and Santiago Torres, Barbora Králová and Andrés Rojas, Lucie Šťastná and Rodrigo Vargas. Goals punctuated the brawls—Alejandra Ríos at 1:37, Pavel Krejčí leveling it for Prague at 5:10, Daniela Salazar restoring the Gatos lead at 7:13, then Barbora Králová's power play goal making it 2-2. The period ended scoreless on the board after all that.
The second was all hitting and penalties and a Kateřina Dvořáková–Emilio Delgado fight—and still no goals. Two full periods of theatre, two-two.
Then the third period happened. Diego Hernández at 4:13 with Santiago Torres assisting. Mateo Guzmán at 8:26, Salazar setting it up. Sofía Navarro at 9:38—Jimena Castillo with the helper, the same Castillo who'd fought at 2:29. Three goals in five and a half minutes from a team that spent the first forty minutes brawling. Prague had no response. Guadalajara deliver when it matters.
VLA 1 — SAO 2
The Last Terminal is a long way to go for a road win, and the São Paulo Serpents earned theirs the hard way—three goals in the first period, then forty minutes of physical attrition to protect the lead. The Vladivostok Vodkas, at 1.95, couldn't claw it back against a São Paulo side priced at 1.86.
It was 22 seconds before the first punch was thrown: Juliana Santos and Vera Orlova squaring off and collecting matching majors. Then a Maxim Petrov penalty, and Amanda Barbosa capitalized on the power play at 6:38—Felipe Carvalho with the assist. Thiago Pereira took a minor at 7:22, and Carvalho himself scored at 7:53 off a Camila Ferreira feed. Two-nothing for São Paulo before the game had found its footing. Vera Orlova responded for Vladivostok on a power play at 9:24—Nikita Sorokin assisting—to make it 2-1, and that was all the scoring the evening would produce.
The second period was a hitting contest with Vera Orlova at the centre of everything—two hits, a second fight, this time with Mariana Lima (coincidental majors)—but no goals. The third brought more of the same. Yelena Pavlova and Bruno Nascimento fought at 3:10, Juliana Santos took a penalty, and São Paulo simply held on. Road win, nothing glamorous about it.
MUM 3 — TOK 5
The Mumbai Monsoons led twice and still lost. The Tokyo Titans were 1.72 favorites at The Salt Pavilion—and Mio Kobayashi made sure the odds told the right story, finishing with a hat trick and leaving Mumbai with nothing.
Arjun Patil and Rohan Deshmukh had Mumbai rolling early—Deshmukh at 1:13, Patil at 11:33 off a Kiran Bhatt feed, and the Monsoons led 2-0 despite an Aoi Yamamoto–Vikram Joshi fight and a pair of penalties along the way. Kobayashi pulled one back on a power play at 12:07, Ren Inoue assisting. Two-one at the break.
The second stayed tight. Yūma Hayashi equalized at 6:29 off a Sakura Shimizu pass. Two-two.
The third decided it all. Patil put Mumbai ahead again at 3:41—his second of the night, Deshmukh returning the assist. Kobayashi answered at 4:32 with Aoi Yamamoto helping—three-three. Then the Titans pulled clear. Yuki Sato at 13:32, Riku Mori assisting, and Kobayashi completed the hat trick at 14:59 in the final second of regulation, Hayashi setting it up. Mumbai scored three goals and still lost by two. Sometimes the other side just has Mio Kobayashi.
RIM 3 — JBG 1
Clean work from the Rimini Rinklers at The Coastal Pavilion. The Johannesburg Jaguars came in at 2.29 odds—large underdogs—and Rimini, at 1.63, made good on the expectation without drama or excess.
A Pieter Botha–Lorenzo Fabbri fight in the second minute sent both to The Sixth and set a physical tone, but Giulia Bianchi cut through it all at 4:24—Luca Ferretti with the helper—and Rimini led 1-0 after one period, which felt appropriate.
The second started with a surprise. Thabo Mokoena equalized for Johannesburg at 2:36 off a Thandiwe Radebe pass—briefly, the Jaguars had something to work with. But 64 seconds later, Bianchi struck again—Valentina Colombo with the assist—and Rimini were back ahead. The Jaguars couldn't find the net again.
The third was Rimini's period to control. Valentina Colombo added the insurance goal at 13:38 with Sofia Barbieri assisting, completing a night in which Colombo also finished with four hits. Bianchi's two-goal effort headlined the box score. Rimini win comfortably, the way 1.63 favorites are supposed to.
Four upsets, three games that needed overtime or a shootout, and a hat trick from Mio Kobayashi. Matchday 31 didn't waste anyone's time. I'll be back for Matchday 32—and if Heather Braund is playing, I'd keep an eye on the assists column.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 31 occurred. Three games required additional time to resolve. One required a shootout. Le Council considers this within normal parameters, while noting that "normal" is a word Le Council uses with diminishing confidence. The record has been updated accordingly.