A Welcome Takeover: Ottawa skates to the win over Montreal at PWHL Winnipeg Takeover game
- jasonpchajek
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Welcome to professional women’s hockey Winnipeg.
A 2-1 overtime thriller in front of a capacity crowd sealed the PWHL Takeover Tour stop in Winnipeg. The Ottawa Charge, wearing their red home jerseys, skated away with the win over the ‘visiting’ Montreal Victoire, but the happiest people in the building were undoubtedly the fans—or more likely the PWHL themselves.
In its third season of existence, the young PWHL had yet to hold one of its Takeover Tour events—where the league holds a regular season game in a neutral site to build support for the women’s game—in the Manitoba capital, but it would be impossible to say the event was anything but a success.
Both on and off the ice.
The Game: Extra hockey, on the PWHL
Sunday’s affair got off to a slow start, with teams trading chances through the first 20 minutes of play. Ottawa got the best look of the frame off the stick of Ronja Savolainen, who took a pass just inside the left faceoff dot and rifled one on Ann-Renee Desbiens. The Montreal netminder flashed the leather, though, to keep in knotted at 0-0.
The Charge broke the deadlock early in the second, as Gabbie Hughes slid through coverage, down to the front of the net. A Peyton Hemp feed from the opposite corner found her, and she snapped home her 4th of the season, giving the Charge the 1-0 lead.
Montreal got the equalizer six minutes later when Abby Roque got the puck to Nicole Gosling off the draw and she put it through the wickets on Gwyneth Philips for her second of the campaign.
Things stayed even until Ottawa got an unbelievably fortuitous bounce from a bad situation.
A late scrum erupted behind the Montreal net when Rebecca Leslie ran Amanda Boulier hard into the end boards, taking an ill-timed boarding penalty with 2:44 remaining in regulation. On the ensuing power play, Ottawa forced a turnover, and nearly cashed-in on a shorthanded 2-on-0, but Desbiens stood tall to blocker the Charge shot aside. A few seconds later, Abby Roque was sent to the box for slashing, and the teams took to the ice for 4-on-4 hockey.
Neither side could find the back of the net, and the game headed to overtime.
But they didn’t need much extra hockey.
Off the opening draw in OT, Leslie picked up the puck on the wall and screamed into the zone. She found a seam, put a dart past the ear of Desbiens just 12 seconds into the overtime period, and gave Ottawa the 2-1 OT win in Winnipeg.
U Sports Represented
A number of U Sport alumni took to the ice in Winnipeg.
Former University of Saskatchewan Huskies forward Kaitlin Willoughby donned her Victoire tan jersey.
The Prince Albert-born scorer tallied 111 points—50 of them goals—across her five season Huskies career. She is the most veteran of the U Sport bunch in action on Sunday. After spending a season with the Calgary Inferno of the CWHL, and four as part of the PWHPA, she made the jump to the PWHL in its inaugural season where she suited up first for Toronto.
A move during the 2024-25 season saw her on the Victoire roster.
Former McGill Martlet Jade Downie-Landry was also on the ice for Montreal in Sunday’s action. The native Quebecer put up 41 goals and 99 points across five seasons wearing the McGill red and white before turning pro.
At the other end of the ice former Mount Royal netminder Kaitlyn Ross was sequestered to the press box for Sunday’s action. Ross put up a 55-20-3 record across five seasons for the Cougars, with a sparkling 1.42 GAA and .942 save-percentage. She was also part of the National Championship winning MRU squad in 2022-23.
Fellow U Sport alum Kendren Woodland was on the bench for Ottawa, backing up Philips in the win. Woodland spent five seasons between the pipes for the UNB Reds women’s hockey program, earning a 53-35 record to go with a 1.68 career GAA and .941 save-percentage.
Teebz was able to hear from both women during media avails over the weekend. Stay tuned to hear from them on the Hockey Show.
Was the Winnipeg Takeover Tour Event a Success? Most Definitely.
I think Murat Ates of the Athletic put it best when he posted this to BlueSky…
Winnipeg is a hockey town. This is not a hard thing to understand. But until Sunday the question remained. Is Winnipeg a women’s hockey town?
After the PWHL Takeover Tour stop in the Manitoba capital, I think that question has been thoroughly answered. Anyone in attendance must admit they haven’t heard a pop from the crowd quite like when Montreal’s Kati Tabin and Ottawa’s Jocelyne Larocque were introduced. They’ve got more than a handful of fans in their old stomping ground.
Tabin is from Winnipeg, while Larocque is from Ste. Anne.
In a season where the Jets games can be a struggle to get up for, this was a nice change of pace.
I arrived roughly two hours before puck drop, and still saw dozens of Victoire and Charge jerseys—interspersed with a few Sirens, Frost, Scepters, and at least one Goldeneyes jersey. Winnipeg showed up, and one could not look out at the crowd full of young girls chanting and cheering for their hockey heroes and deny that there isn’t a love for the women’s game here in the Peg.
Because that’s what this is about, right? Building up love and support for a burgeoning league that is giving young girls their own chance to dream of a life where they will play hockey as their day job, in front of thousands of screaming fans, wearing jerseys with their name on the back. Something us boys have had since the 1920s.
On that front, the Takeover Tour stop here in Winnipeg was a smashing success. A full house, screaming fans, merch sold out by the second period, and a pretty solid game between the Charge and Victoire to boot.
Now, would this success be sustained if there were a PWHL club in Winnipeg? That’s the next question to ask.
The Canadian PWHL clubs are doing quite well, as are the Minnesota Frost—though them playing in an NHL sized rink might make the numbers look a bit down—but Teebz has documented the attendance woes of the Boston Fleet and New York Sirens. Add in the recent arena troubles faced by the Charge and there could be some storm clouds on the horizon for this young league.
When they made their return to the Peg in 2011, the Jets were the hottest ticket in town, and aside from a flurry of support for the Winnipeg Sea Bears of the CEBL, they’ve largely gone uncontested in Manitoba’s capital. But even they aren’t immune to fan apathy or the economic pressures strangling every Winnipegger’s wallet right now.
I, though, choose to be optimistic.
Winnipeg—and Manitoba more broadly—is a hotbed for women’s hockey. We see it every year at the Female World Sport School Challenge, when the best U18 hockey talent in the province get together to show off what they’ve got, attracting scouts from across the NCAA and U Sports. Many of those players go on to the professional ranks.
Understandably, though, it would be hard to see Winnipeg very high up on the list of expansion locations for the PWHL. At least right now.
The most likely scenario for pro women’s hockey in Manitoba will likely come when teams begin franchising, and True North Sports and Entertainment can get their piece of the pie. It’s hard not to envision TNSE chairman Mark Chipman getting his daughter more involved in the family business, as she’s a former Saint Mary’s Academy Flame, and currently the VP of Marketing at TNSE.
Could Annie Chipman Stockl eventually be the President and CEO of the Winnipeg PWHL franchise? I could see it. There are enough talented hockey minds in Manitoba to make the teams a wholly prairie-built venture too.
The league looks set to add Edmonton, Calgary, Denver, Chicago, and Detroit to the list of teams soon enough. After that, who knows.
That all to say, the future of women’s hockey is bright here in Winnipeg, and the PWHL Takeover Tour is a great example of that.
