Montreal’s Ann-Sophie Bettez will be remembered for scoring the overtime goal in Montreal’s 3-2 win over Ottawa Tuesday night in the inaugural game for both Professional Women’s Hockey League teams.
But there was no loser on this night.
With 8,318 fans on hand the game set a new record for attendance for professional women’s hockey.
Fans were treated to physical, fast-paced hockey from beginning to end and were part of history as the PWHL played just its second game and first in Ottawa at TD Place.
“I think you would be remiss to walk into an evening like tonight and be worried about the scoreboard,” said Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod. “You know we talked about that in the pre-game. It wasn’t going to be about the result tonight, it was going to be about the experience tonight.”
Bettez scored 64 seconds into overtime and the veteran player admitted it ranks pretty high on her highlight list.
“It’s definitely at the top part of my career goals,” admitted Bettez. “I’m closer to the end of my career and with each moment I can’t help but wonder if it’s my last or if there will be others, so I try to appreciate each one as if it were my last.”
Claire Dalton and Laura Stacey also scored for Montreal. Ann-Renée Desbiens was solid turning away 26 shots.
Katerina Mrázová and Hayley Scamurra scored for Ottawa. Emerance Maschmeyer stopped 19 shots, including a penalty shot.
Desbiens was the difference for Montreal in the opening period when Ottawa had three power-play chances, but were unable to capitalize.
“Ottawa had a good start and had the fans behind them and my job was just to try and settle things down and give confidence to my team,” said Desbiens. “The fact we were able to go into intermission 0-0 allowed us to say we hadn’t played our best period, but if we played better we had a chance to win the game.”
Marie-Philip Poulin had a great chance to open the scoring for Montreal when she was awarded a penalty shot at 7:52, but Maschmeyer denied her the five-hole.
It was a rare moment to hear Poulin being booed on Canadian ice, but Ottawa fans were clear about where their loyalties.
Ottawa had a goal called off at 11:21 when Mikyla Grant-Mentis’ goal was deemed to have gone in under the net.
Fans finally got to witness history when Scamurra scored a power-play goal at 16:23.
The 29-year-old Scamurra took a pass from Zoe Boyd and went bar down to beat Desbiens, but just over a minute later Montreal tied the game when Dalton got a shot through traffic.
“It’s up there for me,” said an emotional Scamurra. “To be able to score the first goal for this franchise is an absolute honour and grateful to play alongside good players here who helped set me up.”
With the game tied 1-1 Mrázová got a rebound at the side of the net and made no mistake to give Ottawa the lead at 5:16 of the third.
Montreal’s Stacey tied the game at 14:22 when she was able to settle a bouncing puck and send it over Maschmeyer’s shoulder.
Montreal improved as the game went on and coach Kori Cheverie said this will be something the team will be able to build off moving forward.
“We definitely built every single period with our third being our best,” said Cheverie. “We knew there was going to be some nerves heading into it and we tried to manage that as best we could, but at the same time it’s something our players need to go through because we have 23 more of these.”
NOTES
U.S. ambassador David Cohen and Japanese ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi were on hand for the game.
UP NEXT
Ottawa: Plays in Boston on Jan. 8.
Montreal: Head to Minnesota for a game on Saturday.
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