Matchday Recap: S02D45
Five upsets on Matchday 45, and the headline belongs to Ushuaia, who traveled to El Rincón Perdido as significant underdogs and left with an 8-4 demolition of Guadalajara. Johannesburg was nearly as ruthless at The Remote Range, burying McMurdo 6-1 to run away from the odds entirely. At The Sandy Parlor, Dakar and Montréal needed overtime and a shootout to settle it, Amélie Bouchard burying the winner for the Maples. Stockholm upset Winnipeg, Mumbai upset Havana, and Faith Wanjiru scored a hat-trick to help bury Busan in Nairobi. Allons-y, there is a great deal to cover.
PER 4 — SAO 0
Perth were pick'em at home against São Paulo—1.88 to 1.93—and delivered anyway, shutting out the Serpents at The Red Furnace. Sienna Kapoor opened it on the power play at 14:51 of the first, Gemma Fletcher assisting, capping a chippy opening period that saw Oscar Whitfield and Camila Ferreira drop the gloves in its final minute. The second period passed scoreless, both goaltenders standing tall through a parade of penalties and Sixth trips that reshuffled modifiers across both benches without touching the scoreboard.
Jack Mitchell broke it open in the third, scoring twice—at 6:50, Oscar Whitfield assisting, and again at 14:07, Zara Patel picking up the helper—bookending a Liam O'Brien goal at 10:03, Eliza Cartwright assisting, that made it 3-0 in between. Three different finishers, and a Perth side that never let São Paulo find any room. Sixteen hits and two fights kept The Red Furnace lively, but Mitchell's two goals were the story of a clean, professional shutout for the home side.
GDL 4 — USH 8
Guadalajara were sizable 1.55 favorites at El Rincón Perdido and were run off their own ice. Agustín Medina opened the scoring for Ushuaia at 1:25, Camila Aguirre assisting, and Nicolás Sosa doubled it at 5:44, Florencia Ramos feeding him through a Black Hole Net that kept finding the twine all night. Daniela Salazar pulled one back for the Gatos at 13:21, assisted by Valentina Ramírez, but that was as close as Guadalajara would get. The second period was a track meet—Tomás Peralta, Florencia Ramos, and Matías Fernández, twice, the second on the power play, scored for Ushuaia, with only Ramírez and Sofía Navarro answering, and the away side led 6-3 after forty minutes.
Navarro pulled Guadalajara within two early in the third, assisted by Camila Flores, but Martina Vega and Luciana Romero finished the rout, the latter set up by Fernández, who closed with two goals and an assist on the night. Carlos Morales and Nicolás Sosa fought at 3:08 for good measure. Twelve goals, seven different Ushuaia scorers, and Black Hole Net doing its quiet work throughout—at 2.47 odds, this was the biggest number of the matchday and the loudest possible statement from the road side.
MCM 1 — JBG 6
McMurdo were the home favorites at The Remote Range at 1.75 and were dismantled instead. Zanele Ndaba opened it for Johannesburg at 6:56, Kagiso Molefe assisting, and Lars Henriksen tied it for the Monoliths on the power play at 11:26, Diego Fuentes assisting—McMurdo's only goal of the night, as it turned out. From there the Jaguars simply took over: Pieter Botha, Mandla Zulu, and Naledi Khumalo scored three unanswered in the second period, Lerato Dlamini and Molefe combining on the setups, and Johannesburg carried a 4-1 lead into the third.
Molefe and Lindiwe Sithole added two more in the final period—Molefe assisted by Jaco van der Merwe, Sithole assisted by Ndaba—to make it 6-1 final. Molefe finished with a goal and two assists, the engine behind a Johannesburg side that scored five unanswered after McMurdo's early equalizer. At 2.09 odds, this was as clean a road upset as the matchday produced—McMurdo never found an answer once the second period started.
VLA 3 — WEL 1
A tight, scoreless first period at The Last Terminal gave way to Wellington breaking through—Kauri Thompson opened the scoring 1:40 into the second, Hemi Sullivan assisting, and the Whales carried a 1-0 lead into the third as the modest road underdogs. Vera Orlova and Aroha Ngata dropped the gloves in between, one of several physical exchanges in a period that otherwise stayed goalless.
Vladivostok erased it in a hurry. Denis Baranov tied it 0:46 into the third, Orlova assisting, and Artyom Volkov put the home side ahead at 2:08, Igor Zaytsev feeding him. Maxim Petrov added insurance at 6:05, Orlova picking up her second assist of the night, and Vladivostok closed it out 3-1. Orlova finished with two assists and two hits, the quiet engine behind a third period that turned the game around completely. At 1.76 odds, Vladivostok were favored, and the third period is exactly why.
DKR 3 — MTL 4
Quel match at The Sandy Parlor. Dakar and Montréal traded goals all night and needed extra hockey to settle it. Ibrahima Sarr opened it for the Djinns at 6:53, Rokhaya Faye assisting, and Amélie Bouchard answered for the Maples at 8:33, Alexandre Paquette assisting, before Abdoulaye Touré and Paquette dropped the gloves late in the period. Catherine Lavoie put Montréal ahead in the second, Sarah-Maude Fortin assisting, but Modou Diouf tied it right back for Dakar, and the third period saw Mamadou Guèye—six hits on the night—and Jean-François Tremblay trade goals to leave it 3-3 after regulation.
Neither side broke through in overtime, and it went to a shootout, the only one of the matchday. Amélie Bouchard buried the winner at 4:31 to make it 3-4 and steal two points for Montréal. Dakar were the marginal home favorites at 1.86, and losing in the extra frames counts as the upset column, but this one had nothing to do with form—Guèye's physicality and Fortin's two assists kept it that close for sixty-five minutes. C'est Hockay.
CAI 1 — TOK 3
Tokyo were the modest road favorites at The Pyramid Basin and needed their depth to prove it. Khaled Naguib opened the scoring for Cairo at 7:31, Layla Mostafa assisting, before Sakura Shimizu and Karim Fahmy fought and Ren Inoue tied it for Tokyo at 13:33, Mei Fujita assisting, to end the first at 1-1.
Shimizu took over from there, scoring on the power play at 4:54 of the second, Yūma Hayashi assisting, and again at 4:22 of the third, Haruto Nakamura assisting, to finish with two goals and put Cairo away. Ahmed Zaki and Riku Mori fought in the second period as Cairo searched for answers that never came. Seventeen hits and two fights made for a physical night at The Pyramid Basin, but Shimizu's two goals were the difference—Tokyo's 1.63 odds held up comfortably.
STO 3 — WPG 1
A wild, fight-filled night at The Still Strait—five fights before it was over—that Stockholm eventually turned into an upset. Leah Blacksmith and Viktor Hallberg dropped the gloves early, and the first period stayed scoreless despite the chaos. Klara Åström broke through midway through the second, assisted by Saga Ekström, and Stockholm carried a 1-0 lead into the third against a Winnipeg side favored at 1.86.
The third period settled it. Hugo Wikström scored at 3:55, Åström assisting, and Maja Forsberg made it 3-0 at 7:50, assisted by Filip Nyström. Nicole Flett got Winnipeg on the board at 11:14, Curtis Favel assisting, but it was too little. Elin Sjöberg and Jonas Brevik, Saga Ekström and Nicole Flett, Lucas Bredberg and Kaya Bearclaw, and Axel Lindqvist and Curtis Favel all dropped the gloves across the sixty minutes—twenty-three hits and five fights on the night. Åström's goal and an assist made the difference, and at 1.95 odds, Stockholm's home crowd got the upset they wanted.
NRB 6 — BUS 3
Nairobi were the home favorites at The Ochre Reserve, and Faith Wanjiru made sure the form held with a hat-trick. Jae-won Kim opened the scoring for Busan at 4:46, Min-jun Lee assisting, and Sang-hoon Bae doubled Busan's lead moments later at 6:18, Yuna Kang assisting, before Wanjiru answered late in the period, Moses Okello assisting, to make it 1-2 after one.
Nairobi's power play did the rest. Kevin Otieno tied it early in the second, Wanjiku Mwangi assisting, and Wanjiru scored twice more on the man advantage—both assisted by Okello—sandwiched around a Yuna Kang goal for Busan, to make it 4-3 after forty minutes. Samuel Njoroge and Nyambura Kamau added third-period goals, off Okello and Peter Kimani assists respectively, to close it out 6-3. Okello finished with four assists on the night, the clear engine behind Wanjiru's hat-trick, and Nairobi's 1.70 odds held up in a game that was closer than the final score for most of two periods.
GND 6 — PRA 4
A track meet at The Waypoint from the opening whistle. Bridget Walsh opened it for Gander at 0:23, Janice Hapgood assisting, and Mary Quinlan made it 2-0 at 2:03, Wade Bursey assisting, before Vera Tobin extended the lead to three at 5:33, Trina Pickett assisting. Martin Procházka answered twice for Prague in the period's final minutes—at 6:33 and 9:54, Kateřina Dvořáková and Eliška Veselá assisting respectively—and Ondřej Marek and Hapgood fought in between, to leave it 3-2 after twenty minutes.
A quiet second period gave way to another burst of scoring in the third. Lucie Šťastná tied it for Prague, Veselá assisting, but Walsh answered immediately on the power play, and Cyril Hynes made it 5-3 on another man advantage, Liam Coish assisting. Veselá's second of the night, assisted by Tereza Horáková, cut the gap again before Wade Bursey sealed it at 14:28, Pickett assisting, for the 6-4 final. Walsh finished with two goals and four hits, Veselá with a goal and two assists for Prague, in a game that saw twenty-three hits and four fights across sixty minutes. Gander's 1.86 odds held, if barely.
RIM 3 — MDE 2
A tight one at The Coastal Pavilion between two evenly matched sides. Sofia Barbieri opened the scoring for Rimini at 3:44, Valentina Colombo assisting, and Nicolás Betancur tied it on the power play at 13:05, Mateo Arango assisting, to leave it 1-1 after one. The second period passed scoreless despite two fights—Arango and Francesca Serra, then Lorenzo Fabbri and Camilo Henao both dropping the gloves.
The third period decided it. Marco Rossetti put Rimini back in front at 5:34, Luca Ferretti assisting, before Mariana Zapata tied it again for Medellín at 9:20, Santiago Restrepo assisting. Alessandro Conti settled it for good at 14:37, Serra assisting, for the 3-2 final. At near even-money odds—1.89 to 1.92—this was as close to a coin flip as the matchday offered, and Rimini's depth scoring, three different goalscorers to Medellín's two, made the difference in the end.
ANC 3 — HEL 4
Helsinki were the modest road favorites at The Watch Station and needed a big third period to prove it. Saara Virtanen opened the scoring at 12:13 of the first, Liisa Nieminen assisting, and Anchorage spent the rest of the night chasing. Elina Heikkinen extended Helsinki's lead early in the second, Niko Mäkelä assisting, before Anchorage answered with three of their own—Cody Tulik on the power play and Levi Simmonds, both off Isaiah Tobin assists, and Tara Alexie off Heather Braund—to lead 3-2 after forty minutes.
Mikko Hämäläinen took over from there, scoring on the power play at 3:42, Erik Johansson assisting, and again at 13:56, Virtanen assisting, to finish with two goals and steal it back for Helsinki. Hämäläinen added three hits to his night's work, and Isaiah Tobin finished with two assists for an Anchorage side that battled back from an early deficit only to run out of answers in the third. At 1.85 odds, Helsinki's favorite tag held, but not without a fight from the home side.
MUM 4 — HAV 2
Mumbai were 2.14 underdogs at The Salt Pavilion against a Havana side expected to win comfortably—and Mumbai simply outplayed them. Rahul Nair opened the scoring at 9:59, Priya Sharma assisting, the lone goal of a physical first period. Lisandra Álvarez tied it for Havana early in the second, Yarelys González assisting, before Rohan Deshmukh restored Mumbai's lead moments later, Arjun Patil assisting, to make it 2-1 after forty minutes.
Meera Naik put Mumbai back up two on the power play just forty-five seconds into the third, Kiran Bhatt assisting, before Lázaro Valdés and Rahul Nair dropped the gloves at 4:52. Valdés scored himself at 12:11, Adonis Reyes assisting, to cut it to one, but Divya Mehta answered right back at 14:59, Naik picking up the return assist, to seal the 4-2 final. At 1.72 odds Havana were expected to win comfortably; instead it was Mumbai's balanced scoring—four different goalscorers—that told the story. C'est Hockay.
Five upsets, a hat-trick from Faith Wanjiru, and a shootout thriller in Dakar that will be replayed for weeks—Matchday 45 leaned hard into chaos, and the sides that weren't supposed to win mostly did. C'est Hockay. À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 45 occurred. One shootout was recorded at The Sandy Parlor, a frequency Le Permanent Council notes without further comment. The record has been updated accordingly.