Matchday Recap: S02D26
Six upsets on Matchday 26, and the scoreboard barely covers it. Montréal put up eight goals at The Salt Pavilion in a rout that was never in question. Anchorage and Wellington both delivered shutouts as the road or nominal underdog, and Vladivostok needed overtime just to hold off Dakar's Rokhaya Faye, who scored twice and still finished on the losing side. Add a five-fight, own-goal affair at The Frozen Dock and a São Paulo side that let a three-goal cushion evaporate before finding one more, and this matchday had a little of everything. Allons-y.
GND 6 — MDE 4
Medellín came into The Waypoint as 1.53 favorites, and for most of the first period that math held. Camilo Henao converted off Valentina Ospina's feed at 9:30—Black Hole Net making the difference—after Mary Quinlan and Mateo Arango had already dropped the gloves early, and Medellín led 0-1 through twenty. Then Gander found their legs. Bridget Walsh scored on the power play at 1:47, Liam Coish assisting, and Janice Hapgood answered seventy-two seconds later off Mary Quinlan's feed to put the Geese ahead—only for Santiago Restrepo to tie it right back up on Medellín's own power play. 2-2 through forty.
The third period turned into a track meet. Calvin Roebothan opened it twenty-two seconds in, Hapgood assisting, before Andrés Quintero tied it for Medellín, Gus Maloney restored the lead, and Mateo Arango tied it again off Camilo Henao's helper—four goals in nine minutes and still nothing settled. Wade Bursey broke the deadlock on the power play at 9:57, Trina Pickett assisting, before Valentina Ospina and Calvin Roebothan dropped the gloves, and Vera Tobin sealed it off Bursey's feed at 14:43. Ten goals in the game, six in the third alone, and Gander held on to beat the odds at The Waypoint. Bursey, Hapgood and Henao each finished with a goal and an assist.
RIM 1 — GDL 3
Guadalajara arrived at The Coastal Pavilion as 1.60 favorites and left with exactly the result the odds promised, though Rimini made them work for it. Twelve hits and no goals in the first told most of the story—Nico De Luca and Matteo Galli setting a physical tone that never really broke.
The second period belonged to the Gatos. Rodrigo Vargas opened the scoring at 4:33, Daniela Salazar assisting, and Mateo Guzmán doubled the lead at 6:27 off Vargas's own feed, sending Rimini into the second intermission down 0-2 despite a spirited response from Sofia Barbieri and Valentina Colombo along the boards.
Rimini finally broke through in the third. Giulia Bianchi lit the lamp at 6:02, Colombo assisting, to cut it to 1-2 and give The Coastal Pavilion something to cheer about. It didn't last. Emilio Delgado restored Guadalajara's two-goal cushion at 8:07, Andrés Rojas setting him up, and Rodrigo Vargas closed the night with a fight against Matteo Galli rather than another goal. Vargas finished with a goal, an assist and a fight—the complete performance for a Gatos side that did what 1.60 odds said they would.
MUM 2 — MTL 8
Montréal were 1.74 favorites at The Salt Pavilion, and they made an argument for shorter odds next time. Sanjay Pawar opened the scoring for the Monsoons at 10:16 off Rahul Nair's feed, but Jean-François Tremblay answered on the power play at 13:11, Marc-Antoine Dufresne assisting, to tie it 1-1 through twenty after five total penalties turned the period into a whistle-fest.
The second period is where it got away from Mumbai. Alexandre Paquette scored at 0:36, Élodie Gagnon eighteen seconds later, and Sarah-Maude Fortin at 4:27—three goals in under five minutes, all Montréal. 1-4 through forty, and The Salt Pavilion crowd knew where this was heading.
The third period confirmed it. Tremblay scored his second at 3:46, Lucas Pelletier added one at 5:42, Rahul Nair gave Mumbai a small answer at 6:58, and Fortin and Catherine Lavoie closed it out in the final four minutes for an 8-2 final. Tremblay and Fortin each finished with two goals; Pelletier posted a goal and two assists. Divya Mehta and Alexandre Paquette dropped the gloves in the third, the only real physical response Mumbai had left. Montréal's depth simply overwhelmed them. Quel match.
MCM 3 — WPG 1
Winnipeg were 1.51 favorites at The Remote Range, and McMurdo did not care. Ingrid Solheim opened the scoring just past the three-minute mark, Diego Fuentes assisting, after flattening Dylan Fife early to set the tone, and the Monoliths took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission that already had the away favorites looking uncomfortable.
The second period tightened things. Chris Elliot doubled McMurdo's lead at 6:24, Sven Lindberg assisting, before Anna Flett got Winnipeg on the board at 10:32 off Tyler Chicken's feed. 2-1 through forty, with the hits piling up on both sides.
The third period was McMurdo's defensively and then some. Amira Hassan restored the two-goal cushion at 3:41, Lars Henriksen assisting, and from there it was mostly bodies—Tara Ridsdale, Curtis Favel and Leah Blacksmith all landing checks late, but no further scoring. A 3-1 final at The Remote Range, and a 2.57-odds home side beating a 1.51 favorite with balanced scoring rather than any single hero. Solheim's goal set the template; Hassan's insurance marker put it away.
ANC 4 — HAV 0
Havana were 1.72 favorites at The Watch Station, and Anchorage delivered the shutout nobody saw coming. The first period was even on the ice but scoreless on the board, punctuated by a Paige Riordan-Yanelis Peña fight at 8:55 that set a physical tone without changing anything.
The second period is where Anchorage took over. Sierra Peters converted on the power play at 12:08, Heather Braund assisting, and Cody Tulik doubled the lead at 14:22 off Jake Hensley's feed—two goals in just over two minutes to send the Auroras into the second intermission up 2-0, a Mason Kluane-Yordanis Sánchez fight sandwiched in between.
The third period never gave Havana an opening. Isaiah Tobin made it 3-0 at 3:23, Braund picking up her second assist of the night, and Carlos Medina finished the scoring at 10:37, Bryce Denison assisting. Four different scorers, a clean sheet at the other end, and a Havana side that managed nothing across sixty minutes despite the odds saying otherwise. At 1.72, this was the kind of shutout upset that reorders a week's conversation. The Watch Station held.
VLA 4 — DKR 3
This one needed overtime, and it deserved to. Vladivostok were 1.84 favorites over Dakar's 1.98 at The Last Terminal, and Rokhaya Faye made sure the odds meant nothing for fifty-nine minutes and forty-four seconds. Tatiana Novikova and Fatou Mbaye fought three minutes in, and then Dakar took over: Aminata Sow at 5:49 and Faye herself at 8:51, both with Black Hole Net making the difference, and the Djinns led 0-2 through twenty.
Nikita Sorokin got Vladivostok on the board in the second, Artyom Volkov assisting, cutting it to 1-2 through forty. The third period turned into its own kind of shootout. Ruslan Kozlov tied it at 8:57, Maxim Petrov assisting. Faye struck again at 14:23 for her second of the night, Modou Diouf assisting, before Igor Zaytsev leveled it right back at 14:44 with the extra attacker pulled, Kirill Morozov assisting. 3-3 after sixty, and neither side had blinked.
Overtime lasted until 13:45, when Olga Smirnova beat the goaltender clean, Vera Orlova assisting, sending The Last Terminal into celebration. Faye finishes with two goals and an assist in a losing effort—the best individual night of the matchday that didn't end in a win.
PER 4 — HEL 1
Helsinki were the nominal favorites at The Red Furnace—1.85 to Perth's 1.96—and it barely mattered once the Pyres got going. Liam O'Brien opened the scoring at 14:09 of the first, Sienna Kapoor assisting, capping a period that had already seen Nate Hargrove and Niko Mäkelä drop the gloves after a heavy hit at center ice.
The second period was Perth's best of the night. Petteri Salonen pulled Helsinki level at 4:24, Noora Koskinen assisting, but Oscar Whitfield restored the lead within ninety seconds off O'Brien's feed, and Gemma Fletcher made it 3-1 at 7:35, Riley Dawson assisting. Three goals in just over three minutes, and The Red Furnace was rocking. Liam O'Brien and Juhani Rantanen would fight in the third, one of two fights on the night alongside the earlier Hargrove-Mäkelä bout.
Callum Reeves added the exclamation point on the power play at 12:02, Hargrove assisting, for a 4-1 final. Twenty-one hits across the game—the most physical contest of the matchday—and O'Brien finished with a goal, an assist, three hits and a fight, the complete two-way performance. A slim upset by the numbers, but a comfortable one on the ice.
SAO 5 — JBG 4
Johannesburg were 1.70 favorites at The Green Canopy, and for most of the night it looked like they'd earn it the hard way. São Paulo built the early lead—Felipe Carvalho at 3:43 off Juliana Santos's feed and Camila Ferreira at 4:49 off Mariana Lima's—but Lindiwe Sithole had already opened Johannesburg's account on the power play at 2:54, Mandla Zulu assisting. 2-1 through twenty. Isabela Costa made it 3-1 early in the second, Amanda Barbosa assisting, and São Paulo carried that cushion to the final frame.
Then Johannesburg came all the way back. Larissa Souza made it 4-1 for São Paulo at 1:25, Carvalho assisting, before the Jaguars scored three unanswered: Lerato Dlamini at 7:43, Kagiso Molefe at 10:34, and Thandiwe Radebe at 11:36—Johannesburg tying it 4-4 in nine minutes of relentless pressure. The Green Canopy went from comfortable to nervous in a hurry.
Bruno Nascimento settled it for good at 14:05, Gustavo Ribeiro assisting, before Thabo Mokoena and Amanda Barbosa closed the night with offsetting majors. Nine goals, ten penalties, and a São Paulo side that had to survive a furious rally to hold on for the upset. C'est incroyable.
CAI 0 — WEL 4
Wellington were the expected winners at 1.53 against Cairo's 2.51, and The Pyramid Basin turned into a four-fight affair before the Whales confirmed it with a clean shutout. Aroha Ngata and Layla Mostafa dropped the gloves thirty-four seconds in, and Habiba Sherif and Hemi Sullivan followed at 3:03—two fights before either team found any rhythm. Tane Wiremu broke through at 8:37, Nikau Edwards assisting, for a 0-1 lead through twenty.
The second period brought two more fights—Karim Fahmy and Mereana Brooke among them—and another Wellington goal, Liam Tomoana converting at 9:09 off Hemi Sullivan's feed, for 0-2 through forty. Cairo never found an answer.
Aroha Ngata took over in the third, scoring twice—at 3:49 off Awhina Clarke's feed and again at 10:17 off Tane Wiremu's—to complete the 4-0 final, sandwiched around a Khaled Naguib-Liam Tomoana fight that offset into more majors. Four fights, thirteen hits, and a shutout that never looked in real doubt after the first goal. Ngata's brace was the difference-maker on a rough night for Cairo at The Pyramid Basin from the opening minute to the last horn.
STO 2 — USH 4
Nearly even money at The Still Strait—1.93 for Stockholm, 1.88 for Ushuaia—and the Undertow made the marginal difference count. Lucas Bredberg opened the scoring for the Sirens at 4:55, Astrid Engström assisting, before Tomás Peralta and Klara Åström fought at 7:01 and Agustín Medina and Filip Nyström followed a few minutes later. 1-0 Stockholm through twenty.
The second period flipped the game. Julieta Ríos tied it thirty-three seconds in, Agustín Medina assisting, and Maja Forsberg restored Stockholm's lead sixteen seconds after that, Filip Nyström picking up the helper. Tomás Peralta tied it again at 9:47, Florencia Ramos assisting, and the teams went to the second intermission level at 2-2 after a whirlwind stretch of hockey.
Ushuaia took control in the third. Luciana Romero put the visitors ahead for good at 0:48, Matías Fernández assisting, and Nicolás Sosa added insurance at 4:32, Martina Vega assisting. Albin Nordlund and Peralta fought late to close out a physical night—twenty hits, five fights across the full sixty minutes. A 4-2 road win for Ushuaia in a game so close on the odds board that nobody's calling it an upset, but it was earned all the same.
BUS 2 — TOK 4
Another coin-flip on paper—1.93 for Busan, 1.88 for Tokyo—and this one turned into the most physical game of the matchday: twenty-six hits, five fights, and an own goal for good measure. So-hee Hwang opened the scoring for Busan at 5:16, Soo-yeon Park assisting, after Yuna Kang and Mei Fujita had already dropped the gloves. Shūta Tanaka answered right at the buzzer, Yūma Hayashi assisting, to tie it 1-1 through twenty.
The second period was chaos with almost no scoring to show for it—four fights inside the final five minutes alone—but Busan somehow took the lead anyway. At 7:49, the puck found its way into the wrong net entirely, lost in the Whiteout for an own goal that put the home side up 2-1. Nobody in the building could quite believe it, least of all Busan.
Tokyo made sure it didn't matter. Yuki Sato tied it at 2:35 in the third, Haruto Nakamura assisting, and Hina Takahashi put the Titans ahead on the power play at 6:59, Kaito Itō assisting. Sato completed his brace at 8:08, Nakamura again the helper, for a 4-2 final. The own goal will be the detail everyone remembers from The Frozen Dock.
NRB 3 — PRA 5
Nairobi were 1.68 favorites at The Ochre Reserve, and Prague spent three periods proving that record doesn't guarantee results. Martin Procházka opened the scoring fifty-three seconds in, Pavel Krejčí assisting, after which Jakub Černý picked up an early penalty. Peter Kimani tied it for Nairobi at 9:05, Amara Osei assisting, and the sides went to the first intermission level at 1-1.
James Odhiambo and Wanjiku Mwangi kept Nairobi ahead of schedule in the second—Mwangi converting at 13:26 off Odhiambo's feed for a 2-1 lead—despite a Martin Procházka-Peter Kimani fight at 11:59 that suggested this one was getting personal.
Prague took over completely in the third. Eliška Veselá tied it at 4:19, Ondřej Marek assisting, and Lucie Šťastná put Prague ahead for the first time on the power play at 5:44, Jakub Černý assisting. David Růžička made it 2-4 at 10:36, Černý's second assist of the period, before James Odhiambo pulled one back for Nairobi at 13:03, Kimani assisting. Růžička sealed it with his second of the night at 14:47, Markéta Polák assisting, for a 5-3 final. Růžička's brace and Černý's two assists were the difference as Prague, at 2.20 odds, spoiled Nairobi's night.
Six upsets, an overtime winner, an own goal nobody in Busan wanted to see, and Rokhaya Faye reminding everyone that the box score doesn't always tell you who played the better hockey. Two shutouts on the ledger too—Anchorage and Wellington both walked away with clean sheets against sides that were supposed to make them work harder. C'est Hockay. À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 26 occurred. An own goal at The Frozen Dock has been reviewed and confirmed as lost in the Whiteout, not overturned. The record has been updated accordingly.