The Vancouver Goldeneyes played from behind for most of the team’s first franchise game.
Inside a rowdy Pacific Coliseum, in front of nearly 15,000 fans, it would have been easy to panic. But every time Seattle Torrent scored, Vancouver counterattacked.
With less than three minutes remaining between Seattle and the coveted three standings points awarded for a regulation victory, Vancouver substitute captain Claire Thompson scored to force overtime.
In the end, it was Vancouver who dealt the final blow in overtime on Friday, securing a 4-3 victory over Seattle. It was the first game for both expansion teams and the start of what should be a bitter west coast rivalry.
Goldeneyes forward Abby Boreen was the overtime hero thanks to a perfect pass from Tereza. Vanišová less than two minutes in the extra frame.
“Coming back from being down pretty much the entire game, I think it shows a lot of character in the room,” Boreen said.
Abby Boreen’s overtime goal lifts the Vancouver Goldeneyes to a 4-3 victory over Seattle’s Torrent in both teams’ first game in the PWHL. The sellout crowd of 14,958 at Pacific Coliseum sets a new attendance record for a PWHL team’s home stadium.
Seattle’s Julia Gosling scored two goals in the loss, including Seattle’s first franchise goal during the first period.
Vancouver’s milestone came just three minutes later, when Sarah Nurse took advantage of a Seattle turnover to create a two-on-one opportunity.
Nurse’s initial plan was to find her linemate, Michelle Karvinen, but she opted to shoot when she saw she had no passing lane. The puck went in and her name will go down in the history books as the first to score as Goldeneye.
This capped what had been an emotional first period for Nurse. Of all the big games he’s played in his career, this one felt different.
“I felt like something different was in the air like I’d never experienced before,” he said.
Vancouver goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer made 18 saves in the win. It was his first regular-season game back in action since an injury halted a solid season with the Ottawa Charge in March.
Vancouver coach Brian Idalski liked his team’s play on Friday.
“This group has talent, it has ability,” Idalski said. “We should be able to put the puck in the net. There was no reason to panic. Some of the things that went wrong are things we can easily fix. [It] “It was like the first game where we weren’t structured and disciplined and didn’t handle pucks as well as we’d like.”
Vancouver Goldeneyes forward Sarah Nurse scores the franchise’s first goal against Seattle Torrent goalkeeper Corinne Schroeder at 17:41 of the first period.
The past and the present
It was a night of new beginnings for women’s hockey in Vancouver. The sold-out crowd set a new PWHL attendance record for a team’s home stadium.
A new video board hung from the wooden rafters of the Coliseum, above the Goldeneyes logo painted at center ice. Vancouver is the first PWHL team to be the anchor tenant of an arena.
A few hours before making history as the Goldeneyes’ first goal scorer, Nurse was introduced as part of the team’s leadership group, along with Thompson and their captain, defenseman Ashton Bell.
Nurse spent some time that day walking the Pacific Coliseum concourse, taking in the team’s branding and even the new merchandise store created specifically for the Goldeneyes.
Everything on this track was built for them, and that’s something Nurse has never experienced before.
“We have never been a priority before — t“The top priority,” Nurse said.
Although the focus Friday was on the future, it was hard not to think about the past inside the 57-year-old Coliseum.
Players from the 1994-95 Vancouver Canucks, the last professional team to play here, were introduced at the start of the game. So was Bronson Maschmeyer, the older brother of the Goldeneyes goalie. He competed for the Vancouver Giants of the WHL, which was the last team to play in this stadium a decade ago.
Retired Team Canada star Meghan Agosta, now a police officer with the Vancouver Police Department, handed over the puck for the ceremonial faceoff, which was dropped by soccer great Christine Sinclair.
And in the standings watching everything was Lori Parker, who has been waiting for this moment for years.
Twenty years ago, Parker was an assistant coach for the Vancouver Griffins, a team in the National Women’s Hockey League. There was talent and speed on that team, from players like Cammi Granato and Shelley Looney.
What he saw on the Coliseum ice Friday was the vision NWHL players and staff had back then. But it has taken time, starts and stops, to get here.
“I am proud of what [Griffins’ owner] Diane Nelson tried to move forward back then, and ultimately, if that league hadn’t started, maybe we wouldn’t still be here, 20-something years later,” Parker said. “There had to be stepping stones somewhere, for all of us.”
Host Karissa Donkin and The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian break down the rosters of the two newest teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Bringing the Colosseum back to life
Seattle and Vancouver were announced as the locations of the PWHL’s two newest teams last spring after the league spent months searching for new markets. For Vancouver, the team’s ability to play in its own stadium was a big selling point.
For the past week, Coliseum staff have been putting the finishing touches on the building before thousands of fans streamed through the doors on Friday.
Rally towels were placed on each seat. Boxes of merchandise were unpacked to be sold on site.
When everything came to life on Friday, lines to purchase merchandise snaked along the concourse, something that caused a bit of stress for the league’s executive vice president of business operations, Amy Scheer.
But the long lines didn’t seem to matter to some fans. Many people at the Coliseum were wearing blue Vancouver products. The nurse took a second to look around the entire arena and was surprised to see how many were dressed in Vancouver colors.
“It seemed like everyone had a piece of Goldeneyes merchandise and we got a logo like two weeks ago,” Nurse said.
He turned to Scheer, who was watching the postgame press conference from the press room.
“That has no shadow,” he said, laughing.
Beyond the lines of merchandise, Scheer noticed the faces young and old in the Coliseum stands and the mix of types of people the PWHL attracts.
“It’s just a place full of joy,” he said.
The PWHL’s newest expansion team, the Vancouver Goldeneyes, are about to embark on their inaugural season in the league.
