Matchday Recap: S02D27
Three upsets on Matchday 27, but the moment I keep replaying isn't attached to any of them. At The Sandy Parlor, The Net Remembers made two separate appearances in the same sixty minutes—Dakar and Stockholm each had a goal handed back to them by the building itself—in a night that also produced Wellington's stunning home collapse, a Busan winner in Prague that beat the clock by a single second, and two games that needed extra hockey to find a result. Quel programme, mes amis.
MTL 5 — JBG 4
Nine goals and four fights needed a fourth period to settle at The Oldest Rink, where Montréal's 1.82 favoritism over Johannesburg's 2.00 held up by the narrowest possible margin. Élodie Gagnon opened the scoring twenty-two seconds in, Jean-François Tremblay picking up the first of what became a three-assist night, but Johannesburg answered twice before the first intermission—Nomsa Mahlangu at 9:52 and Zanele Ndaba at 13:47—to lead 1-2 after twenty minutes.
The second period turned into a fight card built around two goals. Pieter Botha's power-play tally put the Jaguars up 1-3, Chloé Moreau answered off Tremblay's feed to make it 2-3, and in between Sarah-Maude Fortin fought Thabo Mokoena, Bongani Mthembu fought Gagnon, and Botha fought Fortin. Three fights, one frame. The third brought Montréal level and then some—Jean-René Bergeron and Marc-Antoine Dufresne scored forty-five seconds apart to make it 4-3, Lindiwe Sithole tied it right back for Johannesburg, and Botha and Bergeron dropped the gloves before three more penalties in the closing minutes forced overtime at 4-4.
Philippe Dubois ended it thirty-six seconds from the end of the extra frame, Dmitri Volkov assisting. Tremblay closed with three assists and no goals of his own, the quiet architect of a night that took sixty-plus minutes and nine goals to decide. Incroyable, this one.
USH 3 — ANC 2
Ushuaia were the better side on paper at The South Passage—1.71 against Anchorage's 2.15—and still needed a shootout to prove it. Santiago Figueroa opened the scoring 1:36 into the game, Facundo Álvarez assisting and Black Hole Net doing its part, before Mason Kluane tied it for Anchorage in the second and Figueroa answered right back to make it 2-1. Fights broke out in both of the first two periods—Julieta Ríos and Tara Alexie, then Nicolás Sosa and Isaiah Tobin.
Carlos Medina leveled it for the Auroras 2:10 into the third, Sierra Peters assisting, and from there neither side found the net again in regulation. Tara Alexie and Camila Aguirre fought in overtime, but five full periods of hockey produced nothing more than a stalemate until Tomás Peralta ended it in the shootout at 4:31. Figueroa finished with two goals and three hits, the best player on the ice across a game that took the scenic route to a result. The South Passage does not give its points away easily, even on nights it takes this long to collect them.
HAV 4 — GND 2
Havana were comfortable favorites at 1.61 against Gander's 2.34, and while the Geese made a game of it in the middle frame, the Hammers closed it out at The Rhythm Bureau. Orlando Machado opened the scoring midway through the first, Yanelis Peña assisting, and the period ended 1-0 despite two fights—Wade Bursey and Yoandri Hernández, then Osmany Leyva and Hazel Strickland.
The second period belonged to Gander. Lázaro Valdés extended Havana's lead early, but Vera Tobin and Cyril Hynes answered to level it 2-2 by the intermission, and suddenly the building had a real game on its hands. It did not last. Reinier Cruz and Yanelis Peña scored thirty-four seconds apart to open the third and restore Havana's cushion, and the rest of the period turned physical—Yordanis Sánchez and Mary Quinlan fought, then Cyril Hynes and Mailén Domínguez—without further scoring. Peña and Machado each finished with a goal and an assist, Cruz added a goal and a hit of his own, and Havana's depth told when it mattered. Gander's third-period fade is the part of this one Newfoundland would rather forget.
WEL 3 — MCM 7
The upset of the matchday, and not a close one. Wellington were 1.52 favorites at home—overwhelming, by Hockay standards—and McMurdo hung seven goals on The Howling Harbour to leave with a result nobody in the building saw coming. Sven Lindberg's power-play goal put the Monoliths ahead early after two Wellington penalties, Rāwiri Patel tied it for the Whales, and Chris Elliot restored McMurdo's lead before the first intermission—Black Hole Net doing quiet work behind two of the three goals—with Hemi Sullivan and Lars Henriksen fighting in between.
The second period buried Wellington for good. Sven Lindberg and Tobias Frey scored within a minute of each other, both off Black Hole Net, to make it 1-4 despite fights from Mereana Brooke and Aroha Ngata along the way. The third was carnage: Olivia Rangi and Mereana Brooke scored power-play goals for Wellington sandwiched around three more McMurdo goals from Yumi Takeda, Amira Hassan, and Tobias Frey's second of the night. Frey finished with two goals and an assist, Sven Lindberg matched him goal for goal, and Charlotte Hemi and Ingrid Solheim each chipped in two assists. Wellington's 2.54 underdogs produced the loudest result of Matchday 27, and The Howling Harbour will be asking questions about it for a while yet.
HEL 5 — NRB 3
Helsinki were marginal favorites at 1.80 to Nairobi's 2.02, and turned it into a laugher for a stretch at The Dark Sauna before the Narwhals made the final score respectable. Saku Järvinen and Liisa Nieminen scored inside the first five minutes—Nieminen's on the power play—and Amara Osei got one back before intermission to make it 2-1.
Then Helsinki detonated. Erik Johansson, Elina Heikkinen, and Petteri Salonen scored within the first two minutes of the second period alone, blowing it open to 5-1, and the rest of the frame settled into hits and a Moses Okello–Jenni Laine fight that did nothing to slow the bleeding. Nairobi refused to fold. Okello scored early in the third and Osei added her second of the night at 10:09, both assisted, to bring it back to a respectable 5-3, but Helsinki's cushion held. Osei finished with two goals in a losing effort; Järvinen contributed a goal and an assist for the home side, and Salonen's finish capped the most destructive two minutes of the entire matchday.
PRA 5 — BUS 6
Eleven goals, twenty hits, and a winner that beat the clock by a single second. Busan were 1.61 favorites over Prague's 2.32, and got exactly the kind of chaos that suits a road team at The Stone Opera. Eun-bi Han opened it for the visitors, Kateřina Dvořáková tied it for Prague, and the first period alone produced four goals before ending 2-2.
The second period was absurd—six goals in twenty minutes. Martin Procházka and Tomáš Novák scored for Prague, So-hee Hwang and Hye-jin Choi answered for Busan, and Barbora Králová and Markéta Polák each found the net to leave Prague up 5-4 after forty, with Min-jun Lee quietly piling up assists behind every Busan goal. So-hee Hwang tied it on the power play early in the third, and then, with fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds gone in the period—one second on the clock—Eun-bi Han buried her second of the night off Min-jun Lee's third assist to win it. Lee finished with three assists and no goals, the engine of the entire Busan attack; Han's two goals bookended the night. The Stone Opera has seen strange things over two seasons, but rarely a finish timed this precisely.
WPG 2 — PER 1
No fights, sixteen combined penalties, and a game that came down to one player having a very good night at The Cold Lodge. Winnipeg and Perth were essentially even on the odds board—1.88 to 1.93—and the game played that way, tight and mostly stalemated for long stretches.
Nate Hargrove opened the scoring for Perth in the first, Tahlia Nguyen assisting, and that lead held through a scoreless, penalty-filled second period that somehow produced not a single fight—unusual for a game with this much time in the box. Leah Blacksmith broke through early in the third to tie it, Marissa Spence assisting, and then finished the job on the power play with under two minutes left, Curtis Favel setting her up after Perth's Tahlia Nguyen had been sent to The Sixth. Both Winnipeg goals came from Blacksmith, built off patient pressure that had been probing without reward for most of the night. Perth's discipline slipped at exactly the wrong moment, and Winnipeg made them pay for it.
TOK 4 — SAO 1
Tokyo were heavy favorites at 1.49 against São Paulo's 2.64, and delivered exactly what the odds promised at The Neon Crossing, though it took until the third period to pull away. Yuki Sato opened the scoring less than thirty seconds into the game, Yūma Hayashi assisting, and that 1-0 lead held through a chippy first period—Sakura Shimizu and Thiago Pereira fought, Mariana Lima and Ren Inoue followed—and an entirely goalless second built on hits and penalties.
The third period is where Tokyo's class showed. Hayashi scored on the power play, Sōta Watanabe made it 3-0 off a Mei Fujita feed, and Sato completed his brace less than ninety seconds later to make it 4-0 before São Paulo had time to regroup. Thiago Pereira got the visitors on the board with just under eight minutes left, capping a night that also saw him drop the gloves with Shimizu earlier on. Sato finished with two goals, Hayashi with a goal and an assist, and Tokyo's three-goals-in-under-three-minutes third period turned a tight game into the comfortable, expected result the odds always said it would be.
GDL 1 — VLA 3
An upset by the numbers, if a tight one. Guadalajara were 1.83 favorites to Vladivostok's 1.99 at El Rincón Perdido, and the Vodkas made it stand up. A scoreless, penalty-filled first period gave no hint of what was coming. Denis Baranov opened the scoring for Vladivostok early in the second, Vera Orlova assisting, and Orlova doubled the lead herself minutes later off Artyom Volkov's feed before Andrés Rojas pulled one back for the Gatos to make it 1-2 after forty.
The third period turned physical before it turned decisive. Darya Kuznetsova and Andrés Rojas fought, then Ruslan Kozlov and Camila Flores dropped the gloves moments later, and Guadalajara pushed hard for an equalizer that never came. Kuznetsova—fresh out of the box from her own fighting major—settled it with eight seconds left, Tatiana Novikova assisting, for the 3-1 final. Orlova finished with a goal and an assist, Kuznetsova added a goal to go with her fight, and Vladivostok's road upset was built on finishing chances Guadalajara simply could not match. El Rincón Perdido lived up to its name for the home crowd tonight.
MUM 3 — RIM 6
Lorenzo Fabbri's hat-trick did what home advantage could not stop. Mumbai were 1.74 favorites at The Salt Pavilion, and Rimini made them pay behind a Fabbri brace in the first period alone—the second assisted by Elena Moretti—that put the Rinklers up 1-2 after Divya Mehta's early opener for Mumbai.
The second period buried the Monsoons further. Sofia Barbieri scored on the power play and Nico De Luca added a fourth Rimini goal off Giulia Bianchi's feed, making it 1-4 through forty minutes with Matteo Galli quietly collecting assists on both. Mumbai refused to fold in the third—Ananya Kulkarni and Sanjay Pawar scored just over half a minute apart to cut it to 3-4, and for a few minutes The Salt Pavilion believed in a comeback. Chiara Ricci ended that belief with Rimini's fifth, and Fabbri completed his hat-trick on the power play to make it 3-6 final. Fabbri finished with three goals, Kavya Iyer and Alessandro Conti each chipped in twice on the scoresheet, and Rimini's depth up front was simply too much for a Mumbai side that never got its own power play going all night.
DKR 4 — STO 2
Maja Forsberg needed only forty-two seconds to open the scoring for Stockholm at The Sandy Parlor, finishing a feed from Albin Nordlund—and before the building had even settled, The Net Remembers went to work. At 1:16, Forsberg's goal echoed straight back: an echo goal, no second shot required, and Stockholm found itself up 0-2 for one goal's worth of effort. Dakar answered when Ousmane Diallo cashed in at 12:02 to make it 1-2 after twenty minutes, with Ibrahima Sarr's hit on Oscar Söderström setting the physical tone for a night that finished with fifteen hits between the two sides.
Moussa Ndiaye leveled it for the Djinns on the power play early in the second, Mamadou Guèye assisting, tying the game 2-2 in a period better known for its penalties and a fight between Awa Diop and Elin Sjöberg than for its offense. Then the arena did it again. Mariama Cissé restored Dakar's lead just thirty-seven seconds into the third, Abdoulaye Touré assisting—and at 2:21, the net remembered a second time. Dakar Djinns score it again, Mariama Cissé, and The Sandy Parlor found itself up 4-2 without a single additional shift of hockey required to get there. Ousmane Diallo and Freja Sandström fought soon after as Stockholm searched for an answer that never came.
Two echo goals in one game, one for each side, bookending it neatly—Forsberg's in the first, Cissé's in the third—and I have called a great many games at The Sandy Parlor without seeing that particular trick land twice in sixty minutes. Cissé and Diallo will get the ink for finishing; the building itself gets a share of the credit tonight. Home ice held at 1.87 against Stockholm's 1.94, a fair result on a night when the arena cast two of the six votes.
MDE 3 — CAI 0
A shutout, and a comfortable one. Medellín were heavy favorites at 1.35 against Cairo's 3.23, and confirmed it at La Ladera with three power-play-flavored goals and a clean sheet at the other end. Juan Esteban Ramírez opened the scoring on a two-man advantage in the first, Mariana Zapata assisting after two early Cairo penalties, and the Mapaches never trailed from there.
Cairo's discipline never really settled—Salma Ibrahim, Farida Abdel-Rahman, Layla Mostafa, Tarek Soliman, and Nour El-Sayed all took penalties across the sixty minutes—and Medellín made them pay twice more. Santiago Restrepo scored on the power play in the second, Valentina Ospina assisting, and Mariana Zapata capped her own strong night with a third-period goal, Isabella Gómez feeding her. Nicolás Betancur and Salma Ibrahim fought late in the third, the only real flashpoint in an otherwise clinical Medellín performance. Zapata finished with a goal, an assist, and three hits—the standout on either bench—and Cairo's Crocodiles never found the finish to match their share of the territory. La Ladera stays quiet when Medellín is finishing like that.
Three upsets, two games that needed extra hockey to settle, a Busan winner that beat the clock by one second in Prague, and—above all of it—The Net Remembers making two separate appearances in the same game at The Sandy Parlor. Wellington's collapse will be the one people are still arguing about at the next faceoff, but Dakar and Stockholm each getting a goal handed back to them by the building itself is the image I am keeping from Matchday 27. C'est Hockay, mes amis. À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 27 occurred. The Net Remembers activated twice at The Sandy Parlor—once for each side—returning goals to Maja Forsberg and Mariama Cissé without additional shots being recorded on either occasion. Both echoes have been logged as distinct scoring events. The record has been updated accordingly.