US-Canada un-Rival-ed
The final game of the Rivalry Series will be for it all. Who could have seen it going any other way?
WOMEN’S HOCKEY NOTES
The series between the United States and Canadian women’s national teams has carried over the same excitement from last year’s Winter Olympics. The Americans took Game 1, the lone tally coming from Hilary Knight (Montreal, CWHL) before Canada took control for a 4-3 win in Game 2.
Boston Pride goalie — and Lynn native — Katie Burt made her first start with the senior national team, and let up the four goals.
The series has displayed plenty of Boston connections; five Pride players (Burt, Amanda Pelkey, Gigi Marvin, Haley Skarupa, Dana Trivigno) are with the USWNT, while three Boston University alums skate for Canada — Marie-Philip Poulin, Victoria Bach and Rebecca Leslie.
Game 3 of the series is tomorrow night before the players return to their respective pro teams.
Girls hockey day
The Bruins hosted their third annual Girls Hockey Day on Feb. 7 at the Garden. Four Pride players — Kaleigh Fratkin, Mary Parker, Lauren Kelly and Madison Litchfield — hosted clinics for girls hockey players.
It capped off what was a busy week for the Pride, including the NWHL AllStar game, Burt practicing with the Nashville Predators, and three Pride players skating in Red Bull Crashed Ice at Fenway Park.
“It was so cool to see on Twitter, Katie on the ice,” Litchfield said. “All the girls doing the Crashed Ice stuff, there’s a lot of cool stuff happening in the NWHL.”
The Pride have one more home game March 2 at Warrior Ice Arena against Minnesota. As a part of their recent partnership with the Bruins, it’s given Litchfield and the team more of an opportunity to give back to the girls hockey community, as they did last week.
“To get to come here and be on the ice with all these girls looking up to us, it’s really exciting,” she said.
No merger progress
At least from the CWHL side of things, the idea of merging into one unified women’s hockey league still is in the distant future.
“As much as anyone else, I want to see one league,” CWHL interim commissioner Jayna Hefford said. “When I played I wanted one league and I still believe we have to get to one league. It’s more challenging than it looks like from the outside. We do believe that the NHL will play a large part in that. We’re working through some things with them.
“With the NWHL there’s talk of a merger, but we have to find a way, if that’s the route we go, there’s some challenges to that, with how we operate and where teams are located and how many teams we’d actually have. There’s an ongoing dialogue with that.”
The Rivalry Series, with players from both leagues participating, has resparked more of a discussion publicly, but Hefford still wants it to be handled delicately.
“We just want to make sure that when we get to that point, we do it the right way and it’s a successful venture for women’s hockey,” Hefford said. “It’s a priority to get to one league, but I don’t know what that one league looks like.”