Its A Fucking Lifestyle

Montreal vs. Minnesota

Was anyone else worried we were about to have another night of endless OT's because I sure was! The goalies in this league are like on a whole different level of talent I swear. When everyone kept saying playoff Rooney is a different beast, they were not kidding! Night after night she continues to impress me! Of course, ARD always does and that hasn't changed throughout this series!

As I said in my last post, I am a Sirens fan and I'm rooting for Ottawa to take it all, but in this specific series I'm rooting for Montreal. Let me make it clear it's not because I hate Minnesota, it's because they have already won twice and now it's someone else's turn.

Anyway, this game was great as is almost every game between these two teams. I feel like the PWHL is finally at a point where we are getting real rivalries. I know people say Boston and NY are one all the time but I'm going to be real with you, I don't feel it. I don't feel it between the teams when they play and I don't feel it among the fan's either and that's a big part of sports rivalries, the fans! Montreal and NY could be a contender, they are always explosive when the play against each other (DC for example) but again, it's really not there between the fans. However, with Montreal and Minnesota you feel it and see it and smell it among the teams AND the fans. The rivalry is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.

That being said, I'm not sure I'm enjoying this rivalry all that much. Both teams were pretty evenly matched throughout the game with shots on goal, zone time, and hits. Montreal had double the penalty minute though which unfortunately turned out to be their downfall as it was that second to last penalty Stacey took that gave Minnesota the Power Play they scored their 2nd goal on, which even with that empty net goal, could be considered the game winning goal. This is coincidentally the penalty I think needs to be talked about.

The reaction to this hit Stacey gave Curl was so interesting to me. You've got a few different camps of people I think need addressing. So of course, you have your levelheaded Montreal fans who were rightfully annoyed with Stacey because it was the worst possible time to take a penalty and really, Curl wasn't touching Desbiens so there was no reason for Stacey to shove her like that, though I know some people have pointed out that it was retaliation for something that happened at the other end of the ice. I'll come back to this later.

Then you've got your Frost fans who are so desperately looking for another player to compare to Curl that anytime one of their players takes any kind of hit it's "that's dangerous" or "she could have seriously injured her" and the oh so common "if that was Curl you all would have called for a suspension" (to be fair, they probably aren't wrong about that). I'm not saying they aren't right about this sometimes. In Game 2 the officials missed Marie-Philip Poulin pretty much spearing Abby Hustler in the stomach with her stick. I was pretty sure (hoping) the Player Safety Committee would issue some kind of discipline after reviewing the game, but they didn't. Frost fans are rightfully upset about this. However, the shove Stacey gave Curl was not the same. Was it a hard shove that deserved a penalty? Absolutely. But it wasn't any more dangerous than the sport itself. Something the Frost fans need to just learn to swallow is that Curl is a player with a lot of suspensions and supplementary discipline under her belt. There is no other player that compares to her, it's just that simple. Do I think that mean's she deserves to get shoved and check harder than other players? No. That actually leads me to my next point.

The abundance of people angry that Stacey even got a penalty for that because it was against Curl really kind of makes my blood boil, I'm not going to lie. You either want a hockey game with consistency in calling penalties for all teams involved or you want a free for all where players can hit and check and fight for whatever reason you deem okay. You can't have both. If you say it's okay for Stacey to give Curl a really hard shove into the boards because she's a transphobe, then you must be okay with someone else saying it's fine for Keller to check Stacey extra hard in open ice for laying a big hit on Frankel in that one US v Canada game. And then if you are okay with that then let's keep it going... you've gotta be okay someone else hitting Keller because she did SNL with one of the Quinn brothers and so one and so on and so on. As the league grows, as you find out more and more about your favorite players, you are going to find out things you don't like. If you are calling for or are wanting to watch violence or bad things happen against a player you don't like or who has views you don't like, then it's not hockey you are interested in. All of that needs to be kept off the ice.

Moving on, like Ottawa, we've got a huge camp of Montreal fans who seem to think they are targeted by refs in every game against Minnesota. So, here's the thing. Montreal is second in league when it comes to penalty minutes, Minnesota is last. That is not because the refs aren't calling things against the Frost, it's because they don't play a physical game like that. Their captain, Kendall Coyne Schofeild, hasn't taken a penalty in her entire PWHL career (I'm almost positive she hasn't taken a penalty in her entire career at all but don't quote me on that). This actually sort of brings me back to my first point.

During this playoff series Stacey has had a bit of a quick temper. We've seen her put a few players in headlocks even. That temper could cost Montreal the series. In fact, that penalty last night could cost them the series. It was implied that it was retaliation for a hit she received at the other end of the ice. If it was the beginning of the game or the middle, fine. But at the end of a tied game? Minutes away from going into overtime? AN ELIMINATION GAME? You let that shit go! Curl wasn't even touching Desbiens, the whistle had just blown, it was just so unbelievably unnecessary. And yet, there are still fans praising it. That tells me you don't actually care about the hockey of it all.