After a long pandemic wait, puck finally drops on elite women’s hockey in Canada

CALGARY—Marie-Philip Poulin was finally able to put her prodigious talent with the puck to use in a real game.

Her short-handed goal on a third-period breakaway sealed Bauer’s 3-2 win over Sonnet to open the Secret Cup women’s hockey tournament on Monday in Calgary.

A golden-goal scorer for Canada in both the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games, Poulin played her first meaningful game in over a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think the last year we’ve been missing a lot of women’s hockey,” said the 30-year-old from Beauceville, Que. “Right now, being able to put on our games and having highlights and showing what we can do, and putting the best product on the ice, it’s so important for the little girls out there.”

Three teams of 20 players in the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association’s three Canadian hubs of Calgary, Toronto and Montreal are playing to hoist the Secret Cup trophy Sunday at Scotiabank Saddledome.

The PWHPA is a movement arising from the collapse of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League two years ago, including members of the Canadian and U.S. national teams. Their goal is a sustainable league with a living wage and the competitive supports that men’s pro leagues have.

Rebecca Leslie and defender Erin Ambrose also scored for Bauer. Goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens made 29 saves for the win. Natalie Spooner and defender Ella Shelton scored for Sonnet. Shea Tiley stopped 39 shots in the loss in a Seven Chiefs Sportsplex devoid of spectators on the Tsuut’ina Nation.

The PWHPA adopted many of Hockey Canada’s quarantine and testing protocols from the world junior men’s hockey championship in Edmonton.

The last time PWHPA games were played in Canada was last year, Jan. 11 and 12 in Toronto.

Of the 28 players invited to try out for Canada’s Olympic team starting this summer, 21 are Secret Cup participants. Another half-dozen have played for Canada on previous Olympic and world championship squads.

The cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 women’s world hockey championships in Nova Scotia also contributed to a Canadian women’s hockey desert wrought by the pandemic.

Montreal’s Bauer had more group skates than Toronto’s Sonnet and Calgary’s Scotiabank heading into the Secret Cup. Because Bauer has 17 players in the national-team pool, it had an exemption from Quebec’s pandemic restrictions to keep practising. Sonnet didn’t have that luxury in Toronto.

Tiley’s acrobatics in net gave her teammates time to shake off game rust Monday.

“Unfortunately, because of Toronto’s restrictions, we haven’t been able to practice as a team all year,” Sonnet forward Sarah Nurse said. “This was our second time on the ice together. At the end of the day, nobody really cares. We have to perform.”

“I think we were all pretty giddy this morning. It’s the first time we’ve been on the ice playing any games in about 14 months.”

Montreal and Calgary meet Tuesday at the Seven Nations Sportsplex, followed by games there Wednesday and Thursday. Round-robin games Friday and Saturday, as well as Sunday’s final, will be played at the Saddledome. Sportsnet is streaming all games and broadcasting the final three.

The teams play each other twice with results augmented by a points system.

A win is worth two points, an overtime win 1.5, a shootout win one point, and half a point for an overtime or shootout loss. A short-handed goal, hat trick, shutout, or scoring five goals or more in a game is each worth one additional point, so Poulin added an extra point to her team’s tally Monday.

The two teams with the most points at the end of the round robin Saturday advance to Sunday’s final.

“It’s different,” Poulin said.