PWHL’s winner-take-all Game 5 is huge for the sport of women’s hockey
Sometimes, a storybook ending just falls into your lap, and all you can do is laugh.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League has had an incredible inaugural season. From national television deals in Canada to smashing attendance records and having the most exciting women’s hockey on a nightly basis, it only makes sense for the season to come down to one do-or-die game.
The first PWHL final has seen Boston and Minnesota go at it in four nail-biting games, all in search of lifting the Walter Cup. It almost ended in Game 4, as Minnesota’s Sophie Jaques seemed to have scored the Cup-clinching goal in double overtime. However, after a video review, it was deemed that Boston netminder Aerin Frankel was interfered with, and not long after that, Alina Müller scored the game-winning goal to send the series back to Lowell.
Controversies aside, there is no better way to cap off an incredible 2024 season than by having two great teams littered with future Hall of Famers and rising stars meet with everything on the line. While all of the hype and success of the regular season has been fantastic, nothing will bolster the league’s image even more outside of a game of this magnitude.
The captains are two of the game’s biggest stars: Minnesota’s Kendall Coyne Schofield and Boston’s Hilary Knight. The duo have won many big games together, including multiple world championships and Olympic gold in 2018.
“Reflecting on this season as a whole, how many milestones has the sport been able to accomplish? The way this series has sort of written itself is just incredible,” Knight explained. “It being the first Walter Cup Final is exciting in itself. Further in time, when you get away from it, you’ll truly understand how special it is…everything’s really coming together at the right time.”
The game, held at the 6,500-seat Tsongas Center, is sold out. It’s just the second time Boston has sold out a home game this season, but it’s an important one. It’s a welcoming sight for the league, as Boston had just 2,781 in attendance for their clinching win over Montreal in the semifinals. The team averaged a little over 4,500 for the first two games of the final.
Boston head coach Courtney Kessel says her team is elated to see a full house in the biggest game of the season.
“Boston’s a sports city,” Kessel said. “We’re excited to bring this Game 5 back. To be able to play in front of a sold-out crowd is going to be incredible. Honestly, these fans have been incredible all year, and kind of building a fan base here has been a process, and a fun one for sure.”
Minnesota head coach Ken Klee, who was hired a week before the regular season started, made it clear that he could not have imagined this first season coming down to the final game.
“When I first came aboard,” Klee said. “I really didn’t know what to expect…I didn’t expect it to be so competitive for every team. To start the year, I was definitely not forseeing that it would go to a Game 5 of the finals, but once we got into the season, I quickly realized…there’s not much of a difference between teams 1-6.”
No matter who lifts the Walter Cup, the will forever live on in a sport that needed a big win. It’ll culminate an debut season for a league that was launched just nine months ago with big dreams. Everyone involved realize that the PWHL is not just a league that showcases the best players in the world but also shows the next generation that they have a chance to live out their dreams, play professional hockey, and even win a championship.
“There’s going to be a lot of kids,” Coyne Schofield pointed out. “Watching that trophy be hoisted tomorrow night and saying, ‘I want to win the Walter Cup one day.’ For a lot of us, we saw the Stanley Cup get hoisted, and we never saw anyone look like us hoisting it. It’s going to be incredible. It is as significant as anything else you can win women’s hockey.”
“I think we’re far beyond where any of us could’ve imagined,” Kessel said. “From September until now, it’s incredible what this league has created. Not only for these women, but these young little girls that can look up to play this professional game.”
For the series and the playoffs in general, almost none of these players have ever experienced this type of format. Whether it be the Clarkson Cup or the Isobel Cup, no playoffs had a best-of-five series. Boston had a little more rest than their opponent, having swept Montreal in the semifinals (though the teams needed five overtimes). Knight agrees that it has been a unique experience for everybody.
“To be honest, the best-of-five is interesting,” Knight explained. “Because we’ve never had it before. We’ve never had a league of this caliber…looking into year two I think people might prepare a little bit differently.”
For Minnesota, they have gone the distance in both series, rallying from a 2-0 deficit to take down top-seeded Toronto in the semifinals. Coyne Schofield says, even through the grind of a postseason, their game-by-game mentality has not changed.
“Our mindset all year has been to focus on the one game in front of us,” Coyne Schofield said. “That message doesn’t change…because there’s one game left. There’s no looking ahead to the future in this situation.”
Boston took the series’ first game at home last week, with Minnesota winning the next two. Boston is 2-1 at home in these playoffs, while Minnesota is 2-3 away from St. Paul.
Puck drop for Game 5 is set for 7 p.m. ET.