Hockey

[hotdogPi]

PWHL names have been released.

Boston Fleet
Minnesota Frost
Montréal Victoire
New York Sirens
Ottawa Charge
Toronto Sceptres

[Ted$8roadFan]

The Boston Bruins have fired Coach Jim Montgomery due to the team's sluggish start.

[Ted$8roadFan]

....and the St. Louis Blues have just hired him.

[hotdogPi]

I didn't realize it until recently, but I almost got on video for one of Google Maps' user-created videos for the Tsongas Center in Lowell when PWHL Boston (now the Fleet) won the semifinal in May 2024. I was one seat behind the camera, but unfortunately, the camera panning doesn't go a full 180 degrees, so I can't be seen.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tsongas+Center/@42.6502366,-71.3132188,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e5!3m6!1sAF1QipPcA4Q9hAs-wg3vmUyZfMOxXaqwMs-CXpTl-Stu!2e10!3e10!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPcA4Q9hAs-wg3vmUyZfMOxXaqwMs-CXpTl-Stu%3Dw203-h114-k-no!7i1920!8i1080!4m9!3m8!1s0x89e3a4473c073ccd:0x8469d84c25951947!8m2!3d42.6502366!4d-71.3132188!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAQ!16zL20vMDYwcWN4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D



Standings for 2024-2025 season:

Each team has played 6 games, with 24 remaining.
3 points for a regulation win. If it goes into overtime, the winner gets 2 and the loser gets 1, which means that every game gives out 3 points in total. A .500 record is 9 points right now.

Montréal Victoire: 13 points (3-2-0-1)
Minnesota Frost: 12 points (3-1-1-1)
New York Sirens: 9 points (2-1-1-2)
Ottawa Charge: 7 points* (2-0-1-3)
Toronto Sceptres: 7 points (2-0-1-3)
Boston Fleet: 6 points (2-0-0-4)

* I don't know the tiebreaker rules, especially since their W-OTW-OTL-L are both 2-0-1-3 and they both have a -3 goal differential.

In the first 18 games, the home team has scored exactly two goals only once.

Nobody has been shut out yet in 18 games. For reference, it happened 11 times in the 72-game "beginning of 2024" season.

The home team has won exactly half their games in the 2024-2025 season. In the previous season, the away team won 14 of their first 18 games, but then the home team started winning more so that by the end of the regular season, home won 38 and away won 34 (minus a few if you exclude neutral sites but they roughly cancel out).


If you want to see a PWHL game but are not near one of the six teams, they will be doing neutral site games in nine cities.

1/5 Seattle
1/8 Vancouver
1/12 Denver
1/19 Québec City
2/16 Edmonton (there's a break in the entire schedule for international play reasons)
2/23 Buffalo
3/7 Raleigh
3/16 Detroit
3/29 St. Louis

[Big John]

USA vs CAN. 3 fights in the first 9 seconds.

[Rothman]

USA vs CAN. 3 fights in the first 9 seconds.

Need tariffs.

[1995hoo]

USA vs CAN. 3 fights in the first 9 seconds.

Need tariffs.

A friend of ours was at the game. I told him that if the US lead held, he should start a "51st State" chant among US fans. He said he wanted to get back across the border alive.

First time I've ever seen the French version of "O Canada" aired on US national TV. Usually they cut to commercial instead.

[hotdogPi]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

[SEWIGuy]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

You can't play anything resembling an actual hockey game on any of the Great Lakes. If you have ever been on one while frozen, you'd see its not a smooth surface.

[Rothman]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

You can't play anything resembling an actual hockey game on any of the Great Lakes. If you have ever been on one while frozen, you'd see its not a smooth surface.

That's what a zamboni is for.

[NWI_Irish96]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

You can't play anything resembling an actual hockey game on any of the Great Lakes. If you have ever been on one while frozen, you'd see its not a smooth surface.

That's what a zamboni is for.

Depends on exactly how unsmooth it is. Zamboni isn't going to chop down a foot high ridge in the ice.

[Rothman]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

You can't play anything resembling an actual hockey game on any of the Great Lakes. If you have ever been on one while frozen, you'd see its not a smooth surface.

That's what a zamboni is for.

Depends on exactly how unsmooth it is. Zamboni isn't going to chop down a foot high ridge in the ice.

You lack vision.

[SEWIGuy]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

You can't play anything resembling an actual hockey game on any of the Great Lakes. If you have ever been on one while frozen, you'd see its not a smooth surface.

That's what a zamboni is for.

Depends on exactly how unsmooth it is. Zamboni isn't going to chop down a foot high ridge in the ice.

You lack vision.

We're not taking hockey advice from a guy in Timbuktu

[ET21]

This tourney has been so much fun

[vdeane]

Just an idea: if in the future the US/Canada border ever becomes open again like it was before 9/11, one of the first things that should happen is a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

Sadly, given the way things are going, I think the border going back to the way it was before 9/11 is probably a pipe dream.

[webny99]

a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

This would probably be a lot more feasible on Lake Erie than Lake Superior. It's rare for Superior to freeze over enough for this to be a possibility to begin with, and there would also be added logistical challenges because of the sheer size of the lake (the border is generally far from the shoreline) and the distance from major population centers. Both of those problems are significantly reduced with Lake Erie.

[Rothman]

a hockey game on frozen Lake Superior where the centerline is the international boundary.

This would probably be a lot more feasible on Lake Erie than Lake Superior. It's rare for Superior to freeze over enough for this to be a possibility to begin with, and there would also be added logistical challenges because of the sheer size of the lake (the border is generally far from the shoreline) and the distance from major population centers. Both of those problems are significantly reduced with Lake Erie.

Lake of The Woods...

[vdeane]

Also worth noting that the border rules probably are the list hindering thing about this idea.  The rule for the water borders (at least for now; given current events, all bets are off about how things could evolve) are that, as long as you don't anchor, dock, swim ashore, etc., you don't have to report*.  It's like the Peach Arch park, or the Haskell Free Library.  Everyone involved could come over from their side, play the game, and then return to their country of origin.

*This isn't always true, so it's always best to check.  Notably, during COVID Canada was strictly enforcing the water border and not allowing boats to enter their territorial waters, even though they normally don't care as long as you're just passing through.

[1995hoo]

I had forgotten about this Washington Capitals TV ad from the late 1990s. Nowadays there would be an uproar if they ran something like this.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Wow. Perhaps the most-hyped hockey game since the Miracle on Ice in 1980 -ESPN actually used footage from the movie - Canada beat the US in Overtime with a goal by Connor McDavid.

Some thoughts:

I understand the parallels between this game and USA 4, USSR 3. They even borough out Mike Eruzione from Winthrop, MA, bwho was the captain of the 1980 team IIRC. But Canada isn't the Evil Empire.

Unsurprising that politics seem to have played an outsized role in the game, and the game became a proxy in an international dispute. but in the end the better team won.

After it winning the Stanley Cup since 1993 and seeing teams thrive in places like Florida and Dallas, Canada finally has something to brag about, at least for now.

No pun intended, but the NHL has hit a Hume run with this game. Alongside the Winter Classic, this is exactly the kind of thing the league needs to garner interest from occasional fans.

Kind of related, how does the League go back to a traditional All Star format? And will the success of this game overshadowed the rest of the season and the playoffs?

[1995hoo]

....

Kind of related, how does the League go back to a traditional All Star format? ....

They have essentially a year and a half to figure that out because there is no all-star game next season—the league will take an Olympic break next February (and this event was more or less intended to help generate publicity for the Olympic hockey).

[NWI_Irish96]

....

Kind of related, how does the League go back to a traditional All Star format? ....

They have essentially a year and a half to figure that out because there is no all-star game next season—the league will take an Olympic break next February (and this event was more or less intended to help generate publicity for the Olympic hockey).

I don't see why they wouldn't go back to this. Maybe each year the 4th place team gets replaced with another country, or maybe a pair of countries could field a team together. Seem like Czechia and Slovakia could form a pretty good team together.

[1995hoo]

....

Kind of related, how does the League go back to a traditional All Star format? ....

They have essentially a year and a half to figure that out because there is no all-star game next season—the league will take an Olympic break next February (and this event was more or less intended to help generate publicity for the Olympic hockey).

I don't see why they wouldn't go back to this. Maybe each year the 4th place team gets replaced with another country, or maybe a pair of countries could field a team together. Seem like Czechia and Slovakia could form a pretty good team together.

I could see a reason for not going back to it: injuries. While the fact that the players actually treated this as real competitive games was precisely what made it a lot more interesting than a regular old all-star game with no hitting, it also led to a couple of players getting injured. We've already been told a couple of guys will miss games for their teams when the regular season resumes Saturday. So I could see the owners not being too keen on that sort of thing. Or at least, not in the middle of the season right before the serious playoff push begins. On the other hand, I believe they announced the World Cup of Hockey will take place in February 2028, rather than as a preseason event, so who knows.

[hotdogPi]

Just throwing things out there:

To make the games actually mean something, the first tiebreaker to enter the NHL playoffs should be determined via the following:

For each player, calculate the plus-minus of all games in the Four Nations tournament, then add 1 if that team made the semifinal and additional 1 if that team won the entire event.

Each NHL team has a tiebreaker score of the sum of the players they put in the Four Nations tournament. Note that this can be negative if a team or player does particularly poorly.

[1995hoo]

The team that presently has the best record in the league didn't have any players selected to the tournament—and, after this weekend's games, that's looking like it's not a bad thing at all.