12/19/21 PWHPA Finals Kipling Showcase on Sportsnet
by Chris Morris
Here are my notes for the game on 12/19/21:
Toronto vs. Calgary PWHPA Kipling Finals
on Sportsnet
PWHPA on Instagram
*pretty cool opening video with “Yorktown” by the Butcher Babies
*Manon Rheaume and Sami Jo Small as panelists! With Ken Reid as host and Jeff Marek at the building in the Scott Oake role (interviewing players in the intermission and adding tidbits of information here and there…)
*Jennifer Botterill doing colour commentary(!) but no Kenzie Lalonde? She’s probably in Minnesota getting ready for the last game of the Rivalry series, I guess…Harnarayan Singh is doing play by play and he’s great…
*post game edit…Kenzie Lalonde on Instagram seemed to be in the building watching so too bad she didn’t work the game but Singh did a great job…
*Erica Howe (#27) in goal for Toronto and Marlene Boissonnault (#1) for Calgary
*Botterill is doing exactly what I love to hear…she’s telling stories about the players, making them more than just numbers on the ice…like how Kaitlin Willoughby (#17), right after the game is over, has to get on a flight to get home and work her nightshift as a nurse…she might not score a goal today but I will remember her…
*Sarah Potomak (#44) and Brigette Lacquette (#4) are two players I’m already familiar with on Team Calgary, as well as Brittany Maschmeyer (#19) who I only really know cause she is the sister of Team Canada goalie Emerence Maschmeyer but that’s something…
*Team Toronto has Loren Gabel (#36) and Laura Fortino (#8), whose names I recognize but no one else…
*Team Minnesota (who Calgary beat to get to the finals) doesn’t really have any names I recognize, although is Allie Granato (#21) related to Cammi Granato? After Googling her, yes Cammi is her aunt and Tony is her uncle…and apparently most of their family have played hockey too…they also have Nikki Nightingale (#13) which is just a cool name…
*Team Montreal (who would have played Toronto yesterday but pulled out due to COVID concerns, which meant Toronto got a bye to the finals) has Catherine Daoust (#12 who I have Googled but it doesn’t look like she is related to Team Canada’s Melodie Daoust), so I would have been nice to see them play but I get why they pulled out…
*Nicole Kosta (#7) from Team Toronto (I refuse to call them Team Sonnet, sorry) has a nice interview package in the intermission talking about balancing playing hockey and being a full time chiropractor so that’s cool…
*do another focus on Marie-Philip Poulin (after also doing one last night on Hockey Night in Canada) calling her “Captain Clutch” which is awesome pointing this out even though she’s not playing in this game…final cuts announced on Wednesday for Team Canada!
*also kind of funny that they are promoting the last Rivalry Series game which is on TSN, Sportsnet’s rival here in Canada…
*Iya Gavrilova (#88) scored 1st, from Russia, 34 years old!
*annoucers Singh and Botterill tell some cool personal stories, as Singh talks about his daughters wanting to play hockey after seeing Kendall Coyne-Schofield at the All-Star Game a few years ago, and Botterill saying her daughters play with Sami Jo Small’s daughter on a minor league team so that’s cool…basically just reiterating how representation matters…
*Carolyne Prevost (#17) from Toronto is one of the fittest people in the world, apparently!
*Alexis Woloschuk (#48) from Toronto just launched a wellness app called “The Lineup”
*kinda funny that, towards the end of the 2nd period, the play was mostly in the Calgary zone, and it was distracting that the Toronto Maple Leafs mascot was walking around, taking pictures with fans but it would catch my eye, seeing this giant teddy bear-thing walking around while hockey was being played on the ice…a weird visual…
*nice piece on Ella Matteucci (#71) from Toronto, who has played hockey but also played on the Canadian Women’s Baseball Team and the fact girls can now have options is great…
*again kinda funny with them showing the Calgary vs. Minnesota game from yesterday that was seemingly filmed on a camcorder and comparing that to today’s broadcast…no judging just an interesting comparison…
*nice intermission piece on Bailey Coyne (#14), Kendall Coyne-Schofield’s sister, who played for Minnesota here…she works in the Mental Health field, as well as coaching young girls and coming out of it, Manon Rheaume mentions how she knows the Coyne family well, coached Kendall at one point and that’s pretty cool…
*it’s great to see these stories but also it sucks that these great athletes have to have day jobs to support themselves…imagine how much better they would be as players and as teammates if they had time to practice together more, play together more, etc.
*another great piece about Brigette Lacquette being First Nations, coaching young girls but also being part of the Chicago Blackhawks scouting team
*Potomak is given credit for the 2nd goal…apparently some people were surprised she wasn’t included in the Canadian Hockey centralization program but since she wasn’t, we get to see her here, I guess…
*of course it’s a huge upgrade to have this on Sportsnet and having them produce it almost like they would with the NHL (especially compared to watching some other PWHPA games online and PHF on Twitch, for example) but it’s still not quite there, as they didn’t show the lineups, didn’t show the lines, or defensive pairings like they would with an NHL game…like is Sarah Potomak a centre, or a winger? She shoots left, but is she a left winger? I know I’ve been spoiled over the years watching NHL hockey but it’s the little things you notice when they are gone…that’s something the PHF is good at, on Instagram, showing the team’s lineups, players numbers, the line combinations and such…
*they didn’t have a shot count either but I also noticed that for the US vs. Canada game on TSN…
*Toronto scores to make it 2-1, to make things more interesting coming up on the end of the 3rd period…
*5 minutes left…
*Loren Gabel from Toronto is tough…she takes a bad fall onto the ice, seems to hurt her wrist but sets up Toronto’s goal, then stops Potomak from scoring in an empty net by making a save…
*Alexandra Poznikoff (#16) scores late to put Calgary up 3-1; apparently she scored two goals yesterday vs. Minnesota as well…
*less than a minute left…
*3-1 Calgary is the final…
*Sami Jo Small gets in the lone PHF (that I heard) reference, encouraging anyone watching to support all the leagues…ditto!
*great game, and as I’ve said, I love hearing the stories about who these women are, giving them personalities other than being hockey players…that’s something I’ve missed on the PHF Twitch broadcasts where they don’t really tell me much about the players themselves…
*and how cool would it be of we could actually get the Olympic players, the PWHPA players and the PHF players all in one league, a true professional league? If I win a billion dollars in the next lottery, maybe it will be me…
