Matchday Recap: S02D36
Six upsets on Matchday 36—half the card—and three games needed extra hockay to settle at all. Gander stole one in Montréal, Perth needed a shootout to finish off Vladivostok after both sides traded goals in the opening thirty-two seconds, and Rimini beat Nairobi in the final second of regulation after The Net Remembers reached into the game not once but twice. Amira Hassan hat-tricked McMurdo past Stockholm, and Havana put seven past Prague without reply. Allons-y, there is a great deal to cover.
CAI 3 — ANC 4
The Pyramid Basin opened with knuckles before goals—Cody Tulik and Khaled Naguib dropped the gloves at 6:33, Levi Simmonds and Mostafa Rashad followed a minute later—before Cairo pulled ahead in a tidy stretch, Tarek Soliman scoring at 9:03 off Mariam Khalil's feed and Mostafa Rashad answering for the Crocodiles himself at 9:13, assisted by Omar Hassan, for a 2-0 lead after one. Anchorage clawed back in the second: Bryce Denison scored at 5:58, Sierra Peters assisting, before Layla Mostafa restored Cairo's two-goal cushion on the power play at 7:02, Farida Abdel-Rahman feeding her. Levi Simmonds struck again on the man advantage at 14:38, Isaiah Tobin assisting, and Cairo carried a 3-2 edge into the third.
Tara Alexie tied it early in the third at 1:36, Sierra Peters picking up her second assist of the night, and neither side found the net again in regulation or a scoreless overtime. Jake Hensley settled it in the shootout, calmly picking the corner for the winner. At 1.77 odds, Anchorage's road-favorite tag held, but barely—Farida Abdel-Rahman's constant physicality kept Cairo in this until the final sequence.
MTL 1 — GND 2
Montréal were 1.73 favorites at The Oldest Rink and spent the first period trading hits instead of goals—Mary Quinlan finished checks on Philippe Dubois and Amélie Bouchard, Brian Mercer and Wade Bursey were just as busy, and three separate penalties did nothing to change a scoreless deadlock. Dubois broke through in the second at 3:56, Chloé Moreau assisting, but Gander answered before the period ended: Dermot Power tied it at 14:59, Gus Maloney assisting, and 1-1 held through a third period that stayed chippy but produced no goals.
Overtime went scoreless as well, and Liam Coish delivered the shootout winner at 7:31 to send Gander home with a road upset. At 2.12 odds, this is the kind of result that will sting Montréal at The Oldest Rink—twenty-two hits and seven penalties, and the difference came down to one clean finish in the tiebreaker.
JBG 3 — DKR 4
Die Goue Myn turned physical early—Thabo Mokoena and Khady Bâ fought at 8:17—before Dakar took over entirely in the second period. Rokhaya Faye opened the scoring at 0:33, Abdoulaye Touré assisting, then scored again at 7:35, Moussa Ndiaye feeding her, and Touré finished a chance of his own at 9:45, Mamadou Guèye assisting, putting Dakar up 3-0. Johannesburg answered twice before the intermission—Lindiwe Sithole at 10:10, Jaco van der Merwe assisting, and Thabo Mokoena at 11:38, Sipho Nkosi assisting—to cut it to 2-3 after two.
Mokoena tied it himself on the power play at 8:00 of the third, Nkosi picking up his second assist of the night, but Modou Diouf restored Dakar's lead for good at 14:48, Ousmane Diallo assisting, and it held up, 3-4. At 1.84 odds, Dakar were the modest road favorites, and Mokoena's two goals and three hits weren't quite enough to hold his own building. A tight, physical result that matched the numbers on the odds board.
SAO 2 — GDL 1
São Paulo were the home underdogs at 2.04 against a Guadalajara side favored at 1.78, and The Green Canopy stayed scoreless and tense through the first period. The second turned into a fight card—Mateo Guzmán and Mariana Lima dropped the gloves at 3:20, Emilio Delgado and Felipe Carvalho did the same twice, at 6:44 and again at 14:59—and in between, Carvalho found the net himself at 9:01, Lucas Almeida assisting, to put the Serpents up 1-0 after a period that saw twelve total penalties.
Gabriel Rodrigues doubled the lead in the third at 11:16, Larissa Souza assisting, before Santiago Torres pulled Guadalajara within one on the power play at 13:46, Sofía Navarro feeding him. It wasn't enough. São Paulo held on for the 2-1 upset, Felipe Carvalho's goal and two fights defining a night that was as much about attrition as skill at The Green Canopy.
BUS 3 — MUM 0
Busan were the modest favorites at The Frozen Dock and never trailed. Hyun-woo Kwon opened the scoring twenty-nine seconds in, Min-jun Lee assisting, and that 1-0 lead survived a first period light on offense but heavy on penalties. The second period brought the strangest goal of the matchday: at 5:02, the puck found its way into Mumbai's own net, lost in the Whiteout, and Busan led 2-0 without so much as an extra shot on the board.
Min-jun Lee made it official at 12:07 of the third, Kwon returning the assist, and Mumbai never threatened the scoreline, managing nothing across sixty minutes. At 1.75 odds, this was straightforward chalk—Kwon and Lee combined for a goal and an assist apiece, and Busan's goaltender needed to do very little beyond survive a mostly one-sided game.
WPG 3 — WEL 0
The Cold Lodge stayed scoreless for forty minutes despite two fights—Curtis Favel and Manaia Walker in the first, Olivia Rangi and Brendan Fehr in the second—and eight total penalties keeping both benches thin. Wellington were the slimmest of favorites at 1.88, and for two periods it looked like the tighter odds would hold.
Then Winnipeg took over in the third. Kaya Bearclaw opened the scoring at 8:08, Leah Blacksmith assisting, Jake Fehr made it 2-0 at 9:17, Anna Flett assisting, and Bearclaw struck again at 11:23, Brody Flett feeding her, to complete a three-goal frame that buried Wellington in twenty minutes. Bearclaw's two goals were the difference in a game that stayed even on the odds board and lopsided on the scoreboard—Winnipeg's shutout was total, and Wellington never found an answer once the third period started.
TOK 2 — USH 0
Tokyo were heavy favorites at 1.68 and made it count early at The Neon Crossing. Kaito Itō opened the scoring on the power play at 1:17, moments after Matías Fernández returned from The Sixth, Sōta Watanabe assisting, and Sakura Shimizu doubled the lead at 9:59, Hina Takahashi feeding her. Shimizu was everywhere all night—four hits to go with her goal—and Tokyo carried a comfortable 2-0 into the second period.
Nothing changed after that. Riku Mori and Santiago Figueroa fought early in the second, and the hits kept coming from both sides—twenty-one total on the night—but neither team found the net again. Ushuaia's road-underdog tag at 2.21 held true, and Tokyo's goaltending closed out a clean shutout, the form chalk holding without much drama once the second goal went in.
MCM 5 — STO 3
The Remote Range saw four goals inside the first fourteen minutes. Maja Forsberg opened it for Stockholm on the power play at 4:04, Axel Lindqvist assisting, before Amira Hassan tied it for McMurdo at 10:18, Kofi Mensah assisting. Chris Elliot put the home side ahead at 12:47, Tobias Frey assisting, and Elin Sjöberg answered right back for Stockholm at 14:05, Saga Ekström feeding her, leaving it 2-2 after a frantic opening period. The second settled into a quieter, more physical stretch with no goals from either side.
Amira Hassan took over the third. Lars Henriksen put McMurdo ahead again at 6:11, Ji-hoon Baek assisting, and Hassan scored twice in the next four minutes—at 7:43, Natasha Borova assisting, and again at 9:48, Yumi Takeda assisting—to complete her hat-trick. Axel Lindqvist pulled one back for Stockholm at 11:28, Freja Sandström assisting, but it was too little. McMurdo were the 1.7 favorites and delivered, with Hassan's three goals the story of the night at The Remote Range.
HEL 1 — MDE 3
Helsinki were the slimmest of favorites at 1.84, and Erik Johansson gave The Dark Sauna an early lift at 2:33, Petteri Salonen assisting. Mikko Hämäläinen and Nicolás Betancur fought minutes later, and Medellín answered before the first intermission—Santiago Restrepo tied it at 12:02, Mateo Arango assisting—to leave it 1-1 after a period that also saw Juhani Rantanen and Daniela Mejía drop the gloves midway through the second. The middle frame stayed scoreless despite the chippiness.
Medellín took over in the third. Camilo Henao put the visitors ahead at 11:21, Juan Esteban Ramírez assisting, and Mateo Arango added insurance at 12:24, Restrepo returning the assist, to make it 3-1 final. Restrepo and Arango combined for a goal and an assist apiece, the engine behind a road upset that leaves Helsinki with questions after being favored at home. At 1.97 odds, Medellín's depth down the stretch made the difference at The Dark Sauna.
PRA 0 — HAV 7
Havana were 1.75 favorites at The Stone Opera and turned it into the rout of the matchday. Lisandra Álvarez opened the scoring at 12:20, Yoandri Hernández assisting, and doubled it on the power play at 11:35 of the second, Hernández assisting again, before Reinier Cruz made it 3-0 at 12:11, Yordanis Sánchez feeding him. Lucie Šťastná and Adonis Reyes fought late in the period, but by then Prague had nothing going at either end of the ice.
The third period buried the home side completely. Mailén Domínguez scored at 7:26, Cruz assisting, Dayana Rodríguez added a power-play goal at 9:17, Adonis Reyes assisting, Yanelis Peña made it 6-0 at 12:18, Lázaro Valdés assisting, and Domínguez capped the night at 14:59, Cruz picking up his second assist. Seven goals, five different scorers, and a shutout to close it out 7-0. Reinier Cruz's goal and two assists paced a Havana side that made a comfortable favorite's tag look conservative—Prague never found their footing at The Stone Opera.
PER 4 — VLA 3
The Red Furnace produced two goals in the first thirty-two seconds. Denis Baranov opened it for Vladivostok at 0:19, Vera Orlova assisting, and Riley Dawson answered thirteen seconds later for Perth, Gemma Fletcher assisting. It didn't slow down—Orlova scored herself at 5:46, Baranov returning the assist, before Mia Thornton tied it again for Perth at 9:17, Callum Reeves assisting, and Tatiana Novikova restored Vladivostok's lead at 13:20, Olga Smirnova assisting, for a wild 2-3 after twenty minutes.
Eliza Cartwright tied it for good early in the second, scoring at 4:10 with Nate Hargrove assisting, and from there the game turned into a physical standoff—Igor Zaytsev and Zara Patel fought in the second, Maxim Petrov and Patel again in the third—without another goal in regulation or overtime. Liam O'Brien buried the shootout winner at 6:31 to steal it for Perth, 4-3. At 1.98 odds, this was an upset built on an opening the odds board never saw coming, and O'Brien's finish made it stick.
NRB 4 — RIM 5
The Ochre Reserve delivered the finish of the matchday. Nairobi, favored at 1.74, jumped ahead early—Brian Kipchoge scored at 6:45, Nyambura Kamau assisting, and Kevin Otieno doubled it at 7:57, Wanjiku Mwangi assisting—before Rimini clawed back twice, Valentina Colombo at 9:06, Lorenzo Fabbri assisting, and Alessandro Conti on the power play at 12:47, Chiara Ricci assisting, to level it 2-2 after a period that opened with Lorenzo Fabbri and Peter Kimani dropping the gloves.
Kamau restored Nairobi's lead on the power play at 13:29 of the second, Akinyi Ochieng assisting, and then The Net Remembers reached into the game—the puck crossed the line a second time at 14:59, doubling Nairobi's lead to 4-2 without a second shot ever being taken. It should have been enough.
It wasn't. Chiara Ricci pulled Rimini within one in the third at 13:36, Nico De Luca assisting, and sixty-four seconds later The Net Remembers echoed her goal as well, tying it 4-4 without another puck drop. Nineteen seconds after that, Davide Marchetti buried the actual winner at 14:59, Sofia Barbieri assisting, capping a finish that leaves Nairobi's building rattled. Incroyable. At 2.10 odds, Rimini's upset was built on a modifier that doesn't usually decide games, and one final, clean finish that did.
Six upsets, two visits from The Net Remembers in the same third period, and three shootouts—Matchday 36 refused to follow the script the odds board wrote. Amira Hassan's hat-trick and Havana's demolition of Prague will fill the highlight reels, but Rimini's finish in Nairobi is the one people will be talking about all week. C'est Hockay. À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 36 occurred. The Net Remembers activated twice in the same building within sixty-four seconds of each other, a frequency Le Permanent Council notes without further comment. The record has been updated accordingly.