Vancouver Goldeneyes beat Seattle Torrent in OT as PWHL expansion teams make debut
CBC
A sold-out crowd of nearly 15,000 fans got what they paid to see on Friday night: a Vancouver Goldeneyes win in the team’s first franchise game.
Inside a loud Pacific Coliseum, forward Abby Boreen was Vancouver’s overtime hero to earn a 4-3 win over the Seattle Torrent.
It was game one in what’s sure to be a long and bitter rivalry between the two west coast teams, which were built from an expansion draft process earlier this year.
While Boreen was the overtime hero, alternate captain Sarah Nurse will go down in history as scoring the Vancouver team’s first franchise goal. That goal came with fewer than three minutes left in the first period, drawing massive cheers from the Coliseum crowd.
Her former Toronto Sceptres teammate, Julia Gosling, scored two goals in the loss, including Seattle’s first franchise goal. Both found their way to the west coast after the Sceptres left them unprotected at the end of last season.
Vancouver goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer made 18 saves in the win. On the other side of the ice, Seattle Torrent goalie Corinne Schroeder made 20 saves.
It was a night of new beginnings for women’s hockey in Vancouver, where the sold-out crowd set a new PWHL attendance record for a team’s home arena.
A brand new video board hung from the Coliseum’s wooden rafters, above the Goldeneyes’ logo painted at centre ice. Vancouver is the first PWHL team to be the anchor tenant of an arena.
A few hours before the game began, the Goldeneyes introduced defender Ashton Bell as the team’s first captain, along with Nurse and Claire Thompson as alternates. Like Nurse, Thompson also had a big moment on Friday, scoring the goal that forced overtime, with less than three minutes to play in regulation.
But as much as the focus was on the future of women’s pro hockey in B.C., it was hard not to think about the past inside the 57-year-old Coliseum.
Players from the 1994-95 Vancouver Canucks, the last pro team to play here, were introduced at the beginning of the game. So was Bronson Maschmeyer, the Goldeneyes’ goaltender’s older brother. He played for the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, which was the last team to play in this arena a decade ago.
Retired Team Canada star Meghan Agosta, who’s now a police officer for the Vancouver Police Department, delivered the puck for the ceremonial faceoff, which was dropped by soccer great Christine Sinclair.
And in the standings watching it all was Lori Parker, who’s been waiting years for this moment.
Twenty years ago, Parker was an assistant coach with the Vancouver Griffins, a team in the National Women’s Hockey League. There was talent and speed on that team, from the likes of players like Cammi Granato and Shelley Looney.
