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Gallery: Two NWHL Games - Riveters vs. Beauts and Isobel Cup Final Game 2

Thirty or so pictures from two great games in a historic season.

By Dan Saraceni
  • Taking my five-year-old daughter to a Riveters game was something I was looking forward to all season. I sought out this game in particular because it was one of the few matinees that they had at home. It made for a fun Valentines Day outing for the whole family (we also use the trip to go to my wife's favorite Brooklyn food establishment - the legendary Roll-N-Roaster on Emmons Avenue). To be honest, my daughter didn't have a great time, partially due to the weird seating at Aviator Events (and the fact that six of the seven goals were scored on the other side of the ice beyond where she could see) and partially because she doesn't quite get the whole "sports" thing just yet. But she loved the shootout and seeing the Riveters win. I thought it was important for her to see women playing high-level games and know that there's more to sports than just daddy watching the Islanders at night and Jets on Sundays. Right now, her priorities are more aligned to Doc McStuffins and Bubble Guppies than any organized sport, but my hope is that there are many more Riveters games in our future.
  • A pre-game pep talk between the Riveters. Too bad it took then 40 minutes to get the message.
  • The sun from the windows above half the ice reminded me of matinee games at Nassau Coliseum. You'd watch a game with all the doors closed, then when you went to leave, the sunlight flooding in through all the glass would blind you.
  • Fujimoto was really spectacular in the game. My pictures of her were not. So I made this one real artsy to try to hide that. Here she is stopping Hailey Browne in the shootout.
  • Riveters win! Improbably!
  • Here's something you don't usually see before NHL games: the players doing their pre-game soccer warm-ups outside the arena. Here are Beauts getting ready to keep their season alive while fans look on.
  • Anthems before Game 2 of the Isobel Cup Final, Barnabas Health Hockey House, Newark, NJ. I was there with LHH's own Les, aka Hockey Goalie Eh. A fun time was had by all.
  • The first period was all Boston, who outshot Buffalo something like 14-4. Here's one of the few Beauts scoring chances. Brianna Decker gave the Pride a 1-0 lead at the other end of the ice.
  • Buffalo goalie Brianne McLaughlin kept her team in it during a busy second period. It was still 1-0 Boston going into the third period.
  • The third (and eventually final) period of the first Isobel Cup final begins.
  • This time, it was Boston goalie Brittany Ott's turn to be under siege. The Beauts came out like their season was on the line and peppered Ott for the first half of the third.
  • Then, heartbreak. Hilary Knight had a shorthanded breakaway attempt stopped by McLaughlin. But Knight grabbed her own rebound and hit a streaking Decker, who scored to give Boston a 2-0 lead. Rough way to lose a ton of momentum.
  • The Beauts did go right back to work in the Boston zone, although Knight eventually made the score 3-0. Buffalo thought it had a goal by Meghan Duggan here, but it was waived off when refs determined that she had punched the puck past Ott with her hand. Buffalo would eventually break the shutout with Erin Zach's goal in the final minute and change.
  • Victory. The Boston Pride are the first NWHL champions.
  • Pride mascot Ness gets into the celebration. Celebrating on the other side of the bleachers was Cornelius Hardenbergh of our SBN Bruins site, Stanley Cup of Chowder. Meeting and congratulating him after the game was a great bonus.
  • The Pride pay tribute to teammate Denna Laing, who was hurt in their outdoor game against Montreal of the rival CWHL. Laing's No. 24 also has a place on every player's helmet.
  • Captains Knight and Decker (who won the series' MVP award) accept the Isobel Cup from commissioner Dani Rylan.

I was fortunate enough to see two NWHL games in their inaugural season: The New York Riveters versus the Buffalo Beauts on Valentines Day afternoon at Aviator Events in Brooklyn and Game Two of the Isobel Cup Final, in which the Beauts played the Boston Pride for the league's first championship.

Both games were extraordinary. The Riveters hung goalie Nana Fujimoto out to dry for two periods before roaring back and beating Buffalo 4-3 in a shootout. And in the finals game, the Beauts threw everything they had at Boston goalie Brittany Ott to tie a 1-0 game in the third period before series MVP Brianna Decker scored on pass from Hilary Knight on an incredible shorthanded sequence to essentially ice the game and the title.

My hockey photography skills are mostly terrible (if you're an Islanders fan that isn't grateful for 40 amazing years of Bruce Bennett pictures, please start now), but here are the best 30-odd pictures I took. Some have captions to tell a little bit more.

None of them really capture the furious action of either game. I'm looking forward to next season and beyond, and the exponential growth of the league's profile.