MONTREAL — Prior to the game, in warmups, the Bell Centre was perhaps a quarter full, if that.
PWHL Montreal and PWHL Toronto were doing their twirls around the ice, as they always do, except this time they were doing it at the Bell Centre, knowing a capacity crowd of 21,105 — a new world record for a women’s hockey game — would be filing in eventually.
Except they weren’t there yet.
There were people lined around the glass for warmups holding signs supporting their favourite players, just like they are for Montreal Canadiens games, and the environment — the stage — was definitely different for these players.
But the building was still mostly empty, and still, for Marie-Philip Poulin, a living legend, this was a lot to take in.
She skated over to the bench for an interview with the arena hostess that would go live in the building, and the first question was about how she felt in this moment, in this environment, on this stage, about to play a professional hockey game in her native Quebec in front of this many people.
In front of this many of her own people.
Poulin paused and had to compose herself before answering, and that pause said so much about the work she has put in to create what was about to happen at the Bell Centre, about the women who came before her who never got a chance to experience anything remotely similar, and the women who will come after who — hopefully — will something like this commonplace.
The emotions of it all briefly overwhelmed her. And so she paused.
“I had a moment,” Poulin said.
There would be many, many more to come.
Poulin comes from the small town of Beauceville, Que., population of roughly 6,000 people, about a three-hour drive northeast of Montreal. When Poulin was 16, she left home and moved to Montreal to play for the Montreal Stars of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, one of the many precursors to the Professional Women’s Hockey League she plays in today.
That year, she billeted with the family of Lauriane Rougeau, now a defender for PWHL Toronto who was on the other side of the ice for this game. And that was also the year she visited the Bell Centre for the first time.
It was for a Canadiens game. The building was packed, much like it was Saturday afternoon to watch Poulin and Rougeau and their PWHL colleagues play.
“If I look back to when I was 16, watching that game, I probably never thought it would be possible to be playing in this rink at full capacity cheering for a Montreal women’s team in the PWHL,” Poulin said. “I never, ever thought in my wildest dreams. Obviously you dream of being a part of Team Canada because that’s what we saw, we saw it on TV, you wanted to be part of that team.”
And now, the hope is young girls watching everywhere will dream of this. Because they were in the crowd Saturday, or they were watching on TV at home. They are seeing this, something Poulin or Sarah Nurse or any of the players on the ice Saturday ever saw when they were growing up.
Rougeau’s first time at the Bell Centre was for a Backstreet Boys concert, but she’s also attended Canadiens games growing up in suburban Beaconsfield, Que., in the West Island sector of Montreal.
“I know what the atmosphere can be at the Bell Centre, and tonight, it was incredible,” Rougeau said. “I felt the vibrations, the atmosphere. After the game, I had tears in my eyes looking up at the section where my parents and family were sitting.”
But when Poulin was announced in the starting lineup to this sellout Bell Centre crowd, there was a Bell Centre roar that was long and loud, just like Rougeau remembered. And as awkward as it was for Poulin — “I felt the cameras stayed a little bit too long on me,” she said. — it was an emotional moment for Rougeau as well.
“I was so happy for her,” Rougeau said. “She deserves everything. Growing up with her and seeing her succeed at every level and seeing the appreciation of the fans tonight, giving her the longest ovation, she deserved it. I was getting teary-eyed for her.”
Toronto’s Brittany Howard and Montreal’s Marie-Philip Poulin battle for a puck Saturday at the Bell Centre. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
But really, it was emotional for everyone on the ice. It was more than just an ovation for Poulin — though, let’s be clear, it was primarily that — but also an ovation for what she and the rest of the players in the league worked so hard to create.
Poulin has been the face of women’s hockey for so long, the best player in the world, Captain Clutch who always produces in the biggest moments in the biggest games. The fact this new attendance record was set in her backyard, in front of her fans, is very appropriate considering the role Poulin has played in creating these circumstances, this league, and the possibility of this stage.
She said it was one of the best moments of her illustrious career. Which is saying something.
“It’s up there,” Poulin said. “Today was bigger than ourselves. I think we’ve dreamed of that moment. Obviously you dream of the national team, Olympics, but this one was something different. We’ve dreamt of being part of a professional league, and to have 21,105 people in the rink is unbelievable.”
Of course, this was significant for everyone involved, not just Poulin. Sarah Nurse has done a ton to sell the women’s game as well, and she understood the significance of this game even if she was on the opposing team.
“We’ve had the opportunity to play in some really big games, and that’s not something a lot of people get to say they’ve had the opportunity to do,” Nurse said. “We know we have the chance to really change the landscape of women’s sports and show off every opportunity we can.”
Or this, from Toronto goaltender Kristen Campbell.
“I don’t think we’re going to recognize the full magnitude of it until years down the road,” she said. “We’re going to look back and say, whoa, that was pretty special that we were a part of that.”
Or Montreal coach Kori Cheverie, who remembered when she was 10 or 11 years old asking her mother to wake her up for the 5 a.m. broadcast of the NWHL final and noted how now, they are playing in prime time.
“It’s something that I, being a part of this game, will never forget,” she said. “At times, my ears were actually hurting. I’ve never experienced that on the bench. It was so cool. During the anthem, I’ll admit I was getting a little bit teary, just because I’ve never experienced something like that.”
Or Montreal defender Erin Ambrose, who had trouble adjusting to the noise in the building and said she nearly cried during Poulin’s ovation prior to the game.
“It was surreal,” Ambrose said. “When I stepped on the ice when we first got introduced, the whole team, my jaw was on the floor.”
When the game was over, prior to leaving the ice after all the Montreal players saluted the crowd, Ambrose made a U-turn on her way to the dressing room. She looked across the ice and pointed at a fan in the front row, sitting right against the glass. It was a young girl wearing a PWHL Montreal sweater.
Ambrose skated directly at her, pointed to her again to make sure no one around her would take it instead, and gently placed her stick on the glass so it would fall into her father’s hands so he could immediately hand it to her.
It appeared Ambrose knew her. But she didn’t. She only knew the idea of her, because Ambrose was once that young girl who didn’t have a game like this to feed her own dreams.
“I think it’s a moment that I hope she can remember, because this is a game that obviously is going to be in my mind, in my heart forever,” Ambrose said. “So I hope it’s just a little bit more special for somebody like that.”
Long after the game ended, more than two hours later, there were a couple dozen fans huddled around the Bell Centre parking garage. They were waiting for players to drive out and give them an autograph, or a photo, just like they do every night for Canadiens players after a game.
The dream of women’s professional hockey is not a dream anymore.
Oh, by the way, Toronto beat Montreal 3-2 on an overtime goal by Nurse 13 seconds into the extra frame, clinching a playoff spot for Toronto and completing a season sweep of Montreal. That result felt less relevant than the moment, the attendance record, the crowd, the feeling these women felt playing this historic game.
But if this momentum can continue, if this can become “the norm” as Poulin said she hoped it would be, then the result of the game will be front and centre, the playoff implications will be all we talk about.
And the women’s game will know it has arrived at its desired destination, where big crowds and big stages are overshadowed by playoff races and rivalries and the nuts and bolts of what plays out on the ice instead of the sheer number of people watching it. Saturday was another step in that direction.
Poulin repeated over and over how much she believes in the product on the ice. All she has seen in this inaugural PWHL season has been validation of that belief.
“We’ve been filling buildings all throughout the league,” Poulin said. “We thought it would be a one-week-long excitement, and it’s been, what, it’s April 20 and people are showing up.
“I think it’s a movement, it’s bigger than ourselves, and it’s up there in my moments, that’s for sure. I was very emotional.”
(Top photo of Bell Centre announcing attendance record: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
