Matchday Recap: S02D20
Four upsets on Matchday 20, and two of them deserve to be framed. Medellín won at The Frozen Dock—making it three consecutive upsets over favored opponents on the road—and Wellington found the only goal that mattered in The Green Canopy with eight minutes to play, against a São Paulo side that was 1.60 favorites. There was also a five-goal third period in Prague. And Amara Osei won overtime in The Ochre Reserve seventy-five seconds in. Allons-y.
JBG 3 — WPG 1
Die Goue Myn expected a comfortable Johannesburg performance—the Jaguars at 1.81 against Winnipeg at 2.01—and mostly got one, though it required a first period of unusual restraint to set it up. The Wendigos were physically aggressive throughout, Leah Blacksmith earning two separate trips to The Sixth while her teammates delivered seventeen hits across sixty minutes. None of it translated into goals.
Thandiwe Radebe and Kaya Bearclaw dropped gloves in the second at 2:28—two minutes after Radebe's big open-ice hit—and in the chaos immediately following, Jaco van der Merwe scored at 2:49 with Nomsa Mahlangu assisting. One fight, one goal, Die Goue Myn building its lead from the confrontation.
The third period belonged to the Jaguars with depth and discipline. Tara Ridsdale scored at 2:33—Brendan Fehr assisting—before Jake Fehr's penalty at 9:10 gave the home team a power play, and Kagiso Molefe converted at 10:56 with Lindiwe Sithole's help. Pieter Botha finished things at 12:09, Naledi Khumalo assisting, and the final was 3-1. Molefe's three hits in addition to his goal; van der Merwe and Botha each contributing one. Winnipeg gave effort but never found their offensive voice in Die Goue Myn.
CAI 2 — GDL 4
The Pyramid Basin at its most chaotic. Four fights, eleven penalties, fifteen hits, and Guadalajara—1.63 favorites—walking out of Cairo with a 4-2 win that felt like it was always in their control even when the scoreline said otherwise.
Khaled Naguib and Valentina Ramírez fought within a minute of puck drop—barely time for anyone to get comfortable—before Santiago Torres broke the deadlock at 14:21, Daniela Salazar assisting. Sherif and Ramírez fought a second time at 4:12 of the second; then Salma Ibrahim tied it for Cairo at 4:42, Farida Abdel-Rahman helping. But Sofía Navarro answered at 6:44—Andrés Rojas assisting—and Naguib and Camila Flores fought two minutes later. Torres scored his second at 13:06—Diego Hernández setting it up—giving Guadalajara a 3-1 lead heading into the third.
Cairo's Naguib scored in the third at 2:36, Tarek Soliman assisting, and Mariam Khalil and Rojas fought at 7:57 for good measure—but Flores closed it out at 13:02, Alejandra Ríos assisting. Torres finishes with two goals. Naguib with a goal, three hits, and two fights—a ferocious night that still ended on the wrong side of the result. The Pyramid Basin produced maximum drama and ultimately lost.
PRA 2 — MTL 6
This game was Prague's for forty minutes. At 2-1 after two periods, The Stone Opera had dared to believe. And then Montréal had a third period. Dmitri Volkov had a third period. Five Maples goals in nine minutes, and Prague's supporters watched their cushion disappear into something that felt like a different sport.
Jean-François Tremblay opened for Montréal in the first at 6:28—Volkov assisting—before Ondřej Marek and Catherine Lavoie fought at 6:58, matching majors. Prague answered in the second: Barbora Králová at 5:23 assisted by Adam Fiala, then Pavel Krejčí on the power play at 8:49 with Marek's help. The Stone Opera was ahead.
Then the third period started at 2-1 PRA and ended 2-6 MTL. Chloé Moreau scored at 3:50—Volkov assisting—then Sarah-Maude Fortin at 9:43 off Philippe Dubois's pass. Simon Côté at 10:58, Moreau assisting. Fortin again at 11:26, Alexandre Paquette feeding her. Tremblay at 14:59, Volkov's third assist of the night completing the line. Three assists in a single period for Volkov. Two goals in the third for Fortin. The oldest of hockay lessons: no lead is safe until the final horn. Prague learned it the hard way.
PER 4 — USH 1
The Red Furnace at 1.70 odds over Ushuaia's 2.17. A scoreless first period, a power play goal in the second, and then three more goals in the third that made the margin emphatic. Perth delivered exactly the professional home performance their odds implied.
Jack Mitchell and Valentina Giménez fought at 11:15 of the first—an early statement from both sides. Neither team found the net for twenty minutes. Then Nate Hargrove scored on the man advantage in the second at 11:04, Sienna Kapoor assisting after Valentina Giménez's trip to The Sixth. Ushuaia replied through Tomás Peralta—wait, that was Perth's—at 4:32. Let me be precise: Tahlia Nguyen opened the third at 1:13, Riley Dawson assisting. Then Peralta at 4:32 for Perth, Agustín Medina assisting. Oscar Whitfield at 12:17, Zara Patel helping. Liam O'Brien at 14:17, Eliza Cartwright assisting. Ushuaia's lone goal came from a different Peralta—actually, Ushuaia had zero goals. O'Brien's brace of three hits plus a goal tells the third-period story. Four Perth scorers. Red Furnace satisfied.
GND 4 — MUM 2
The Waypoint continued its hosting duties without drama. Gander—1.84 favorites—handled Mumbai's 1.98 odds with a 4-2 win built on power plays and Wade Bursey's pair of goals.
Rahul Nair's early penalty gave Gander the first power play, and Bursey converted at 2:01 with Brian Mercer assisting. The second period expanded the lead in rapid sequence: Bridget Walsh's power play goal at 1:49—Cyril Hynes assisting—before Aditya Rao pulled one back for Mumbai at 2:04, Nair setting it up. Then Hynes scored at 10:49, Calvin Roebothan assisting, to make it 3-1. Priya Sharma got one back for Mumbai at 2:00 of the third with Divya Mehta's help, before Bursey sealed it at 5:11, Trina Pickett providing the finish for his brace. No fights, which is unusual for The Waypoint—just fifteen hits across a well-managed home result. Bursey's two goals are the headline. Hynes with a goal and an assist supporting the effort.
STO 6 — VLA 2
The Still Strait hosted something between a hockay game and a boxing exhibition. Four fights in sixty minutes—Denis Baranov and Astrid Engström going in the first, Tatiana Novikova and Maja Forsberg following moments later, Artyom Volkov and Lucas Bredberg fighting at the start of the second, Vera Orlova and Filip Nyström exchanging blows at 14:09 of the second. Through all of it, Stockholm—1.71 favorites—produced six goals.
Oscar Söderström scored twice in the first: a power play goal at 6:34 off Albin Nordlund's feed, then a second at 8:04 with Elin Sjöberg assisting—both between Baranov's two first-period fights. The second period saw Nyström add a third at 5:24—Klara Åström assisting—before Nikita Sorokin scored for VLA at 7:24, Vera Orlova setting it up.
The third period opened with back-to-back Stockholm goals in nine seconds: Engström at 0:41 off Lucas Bredberg's pass, Sjöberg at 0:50 with Hugo Wikström's help. Zaytsev scored for VLA at 7:29—Anastasia Ivanova assisting—before Engström added her second at 11:33, Viktor Hallberg setting it up. Engström's brace plus a fight is the performance of the game. Söderström's double in the opening period set the tone. Four fights, six goals, two points. Bonne soirée à Stockholm.
TOK 3 — HEL 5
Tokyo were 1.84 favorites at The Neon Crossing. Helsinki came in at 1.97. And Petteri Salonen posted one goal and three assists in a performance so efficient it bordered on offensive. The Howlers won 5-3.
The Titans led 1-0 after a quiet first period—Mei Fujita's goal at 14:53, Hina Takahashi assisting. But Helsinki's second period rewrote the game entirely: Noora Koskinen scored at 1:17—Salonen assisting—then Shimizu's power play goal at 3:48 for Tokyo, Hayashi feeding her. Then Petteri Salonen at 8:47, Anniina Tuominen assisting, gave Helsinki the 2-2 tie at intermission.
The third period was HEL's. Ren Inoue scored on the power play at 2:34 for Tokyo—Aoi Yamamoto assisting, Liisa Nieminen's penalty paying the price—then Aleksi Korhonen scored for Helsinki at 5:18, Saara Virtanen helping. Sakura Shimizu and Jenni Laine fought at 9:56. Then Koskinen again at 10:33—her second of the night, Salonen assisting—and Nieminen at 13:11, Salonen providing his third assist to close the evening at 5-3 away. Salonen: four points in a game his team won as underdogs on the road. Koskinen's brace in the third period. At 1.97 odds, Helsinki was the better team.
BUS 1 — MDE 4
The Frozen Dock expected Busan to hold here—1.84 favorites against Medellín's 1.97. The Mapaches have now won three consecutive games against favored opponents, and they did it again with an away performance that was efficient, physical, and built on the Restrepo-Estrada partnership.
An evenly matched first period: Jae-won Kim scored for Busan at 12:35—Soo-yeon Park assisting—then Santiago Restrepo answered immediately at 13:32, Camilo Henao setting it up. The second period swung to MDE: Mateo Arango at 2:57, Restrepo assisting; Sebastián Cardona at 12:26, Sofía Estrada providing the feed. The Mapaches led 3-1 at the second intermission.
Estrada scored at 0:31 of the third—Valentina Ospina assisting—before Henao and Eun-bi Han fought at 2:00, and Min-jun Lee and Mariana Zapata exchanged blows at 10:19. Two fights in a period where the game was already decided. Restrepo and Estrada each finished with a goal and an assist. Busan scored once and were outplayed on home ice at 1.84 odds. The Mapaches' road form is one of the stories of Season 2.
ANC 3 — RIM 1
The Watch Station delivered what was expected of it—Anchorage at 1.72 over Rimini's 2.14—and did it with discipline. A scoreless first period, two quick goals in the second, and a third-period insurance marker.
Eighteen hits across sixty minutes and one fight—Tara Alexie and Alessandro Conti trading punches at 14:53 of the second, after a period in which both of them had already scored. Conti opened for Rimini at 1:22—Chiara Ricci assisting. Heather Braund answered at 4:42 for Anchorage, Sierra Peters setting it up. Alexie made it 2-1 at 10:46, Bryce Denison assisting, then the fight happened within twenty seconds of the second intermission. Jake Hensley sealed the result in the third at 12:21, Kira Naluktaq assisting. Three Anchorage scorers, one Rimini reply, the expected outcome confirmed. Braund's two hits and a goal alongside Alexie's goal, hit, and fight were the performances of the night.
MCM 3 — DKR 2
Seven seconds. Ingrid Solheim scored seven seconds into the game at The Remote Range. Sven Lindberg's assist is on record. The Antarctic building barely had time to process the puck drop before the lamp was lit, and that absurd opening moment set the tone for a game that went all the way to a shootout before McMurdo—2.24 underdogs against Dakar's 1.66—finally took the two points.
Moussa Ndiaye tied it in the second at 2:22, Rokhaya Faye assisting, before Chris Elliot converted a power play at 9:49—Yumi Takeda setting it up—to give McMurdo 2-1. Dakar's Khady Bâ tied it again at 10:12 of the third, Ndiaye assisting, and the game was destined for overtime. Twelve penalties were called across sixty-five minutes—The Remote Range in the grip of frustration. Overtime produced hits and more penalties and no goals.
And in the shootout, Sven Lindberg—who had assisted Solheim's seven-second opener, who had been part of this game from its very first breath—converted at 3:31 to win it. McMurdo wins 3-2 in the shootout at 2.24 odds, and Lindberg's name is on both the opening assist and the closing goal. C'est poétique.
SAO 1 — WEL 2
Nikau Edwards scored at 13:52 of the third period. That is the story of this game. Wellington came into The Green Canopy as 2.36 underdogs against a São Paulo side at 1.60, and Edwards's goal with seven minutes left in regulation took the two points back to The Howling Harbour.
Hemi Sullivan set everything up with a goal at 1:15 of the first—Kauri Thompson assisting—before adding three hits and a fight with Felipe Carvalho in the second at 7:04. Sullivan is a player who controls games through physicality and positioning; tonight he controlled this one from the opening minute. Thiago Pereira tied it for São Paulo in the second at 5:41, Rafael Oliveira assisting.
The third period went sixteen minutes without a goal—São Paulo pressing, Wellington defending, The Green Canopy slowly rising in anxiety. Then Edwards found the net at 13:52, Anahera Reid setting it up, while both Mariana Lima and Hemi Sullivan were serving two-minute penalties, leaving the ice oddly balanced. The building went quiet. Wellington held the final seven minutes. At 2.36 odds in The Green Canopy against the 1.60 favorite, the Whales win again. Edwards's winner, Sullivan's three-hit night, and the upset is complete.
NRB 3 — HAV 2
Four goals in the first period. Then nothing for forty-five minutes. Then Amara Osei at 1:15 of overtime. That was The Ochre Reserve's Matchday 20 offering, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Osei scored first at 3:52—Samuel Njoroge assisting—then Lázaro Valdés tied it immediately at 4:44, Orlando Machado feeding him. Peter Kimani went to The Sixth at 5:18, and Yarelys González converted the power play at 6:39—Osmany Leyva assisting—before Wanjiku Mwangi restored parity at 8:28, Moses Okello setting it up. Four goals in the first eight minutes of the game. Both sides' coaches had the same forty-minute meeting: hold what you have.
The second period was all hits and no goals—seventeen in the period, Havana and Nairobi colliding at center ice over and over. The third was equally scoreless despite Yordanis Sánchez's two trips to The Sixth making the Hammers shorthanded twice. Overtime. Osei at 1:15—James Odhiambo with the only assist—his second goal of the night, the Narwhals' winner. Nairobi at 1.65 odds, expected to win, and they did. Osei's brace across sixty-plus minutes was the spine of the performance.
Four upsets on Matchday 20—Helsinki's efficiency at The Neon Crossing, Medellín's third straight road win over a favored side, McMurdo's shootout survival at The Remote Range, and Wellington's ice-cold finish in São Paulo. The Mapaches are building something remarkable. And Salonen will find no argument here when he looks at his stat sheet. À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 20 occurred. Ingrid Solheim scored at the seven-second mark. The Council has reviewed the timestamp and found it legitimate. The record has been updated accordingly.