Playoff Recap: S01P06
This is what it comes down to. Two deciding Semi-Final games, two buildings that know exactly what is at stake, and four teams that have given everything to get here. The Tokyo Titans host the Rimini Rinklers. The Perth Pyres host the Montréal Maples. Win and you go to The Final. Lose and the season is over. There is no tomorrow. C'est maintenant ou jamais.
TOK 6 — RIM 5 (OT)
Eleven goals. Twenty-two combined hits. A lead that changed hands five times across four periods. The Neon Crossing hosted the kind of game that gets told about for years, and it took a power play goal two minutes into overtime before anyone could breathe. Rimini pushed Tokyo to their absolute limit. Tokyo survived.
The first period was chaos. Ren Inoue scored at 1:47—Riku Mori assisting—then Mori scored himself at 5:59, Mio Kobayashi setting him up. Two-nothing Tokyo, and then Rimini answered three times in eight minutes: Marco Rossetti at 6:23 (Valentina Colombo assisting, barely five seconds after the goal), Sofia Barbieri at 11:53 (Davide Marchetti threading it), and Rossetti again at 12:30 (Luca Ferretti with the feed). Rimini led 2-3 after twenty minutes. The Neon Crossing had been turned inside out.
Tokyo answered in the second with a ferocity that felt like an existential response. Sakura Shimizu scored thirteen seconds in—Kobayashi assisting—before the period was old enough to have a character. Sofia Barbieri and Mei Fujita fought at 2:17. Kobayashi put Tokyo ahead at 8:26, Aoi Yamamoto assisting. Ren Inoue made it 5-3 at 10:54, Fujita threading the pass. Two goals for Inoue in this game, the deciding semi-final he was built for.
The third was where Rimini refused to die. Ferretti converted a power play at 7:53—Giulia Bianchi assisting, Shimizu serving—then Matteo Galli scored at 9:40, Marchetti with the assist, and The Neon Crossing went very quiet. Five-five. Thirteen minutes left. In the building that had been so comfortable in this playoff run, Tokyo suddenly had nothing protecting them.
Overtime. Lorenzo Fabbri took a penalty forty-four seconds in. Aoi Yamamoto converted the power play at 2:05—Riku Mori with the assist, the same Riku Mori who'd scored and assisted in the first period and never stopped being in the play. Tokyo go to The Final. Kobayashi: one goal, two assists. Mori: one goal, two assists. Inoue: two goals, one hit. Rossetti goes home with two goals and nothing else. Quel match. Quelle victoire.
Tokyo Titans advance to The Final.
PER 3 — MTL 4 (SO)
Montréal. Of course Montréal. Alexandre Paquette scored, then took a penalty, then fought a different player in the same period. Perth clawed back from three down in the third. Catherine Lavoie won the shootout. The Maples do not do anything the easy way and they do not stop until you make them. C'est incroyable. C'est Montréal.
The first period announced its intentions immediately. Lucas Pelletier and Cooper Hale squared off at 3:54—coincidental majors—and fourteen seconds later Alexandre Paquette put Montréal ahead at 4:14, Élodie Gagnon assisting. Then Paquette took his own penalty at 6:09, and at 10:42 he and Tahlia Nguyen dropped the gloves and both went off for five. One period, one goal, two fights, and Paquette at the centre of all three events.
The second gave Montréal two more within ninety seconds. Simon Côté at 0:22—Chloé Moreau assisting before the period had found its footing—and Sarah-Maude Fortin at 4:46, Philippe Dubois setting her up. Eliza Cartwright scored for Perth at 5:55—Liam O'Brien threading it—and Perth held on at 1-3 entering the third.
Perth came back. Nate Hargrove on the power play at 10:27—Sienna Kapoor assisting, Riley Dawson serving—then Cartwright's second of the night on a power play at 14:27, Jack Mitchell assisting, Sarah-Maude Fortin in The Sixth. Three-three. The Red Furnace roared. With thirty-three seconds of regulation left, Perth had erased a two-goal deficit and everything was possible.
Overtime produced two penalties and no goals. In the shootout: Catherine Lavoie at 4:31. The same Catherine Lavoie who scored in Game 1, who has hit and fought and scored throughout this entire playoff run. Lavoie wins it. Montréal go to The Final. Cartwright finishes with two goals and a series loss. Paquette: a goal, a hit, a fight, and the largest personality in a building full of them.
Montréal Maples advance to The Final.
The Final is set. The Tokyo Titans against the Montréal Maples. Two of the most complete teams left standing. Two organisations that have done everything asked of them across this entire playoff run and still had to dig deeper tonight than they may have expected.
The Puck determined home ice for The Final the way The Puck determines such things: a flip, heads or tails, no further explanation offered. It landed heads. The Neon Crossing hosts. One game, one building, one champion. Whoever wants to be the first team to lift this season's title will have to do it on Tokyo's ice, in front of a building that hasn't been quiet since the playoffs began. The Ice has watched all of this, and The Jambono is waiting.
Le Final commence. Je serai là.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that the Semi-Final round is now complete. The Tokyo Titans and the Montréal Maples have advanced to The Final. Le Council notes that both deciding games required extra time to resolve, which it attributes to the elevated competitive stakes and, separately, the nature of things. Le Council acknowledges that the Montréal Maples have now won a shootout in Perth to reach The Final, and has added this to the Montréal file, which at this point has its own shelf. Le Council confirms that The Final will be held at The Neon Crossing, home ice determined by The Puck in a manner Le Council considers binding if not fully explicable. Le Council extends institutional congratulations to both finalists. Le Council is aware that The Jambono has resurfaced. The record has been updated. The Final will occur as scheduled.