Inferno light up Montreal for title
Women take different routes to winning Clarkson Cup
OTTAWA— As the time was ticking down on the clock, and it was apparent the Calgary Inferno were going to win the Clarkson Cup for the first time, Hayley Wickenheiser really wasn’t thinking about herself.
She was thinking of her teammates and what competing in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League means.
“You’ve got some players who are sort of pro players, like myself and some other national team players, and you’ve got women that are working 9-to-5 jobs, come to the rink, practise,” said Wickenheiser, who had two assists in Calgary’s 8-3 win Sunday over the Montreal Canadiennes.
“They don’t get a chance to train. I was thinking about those players. We’ve got a police officer, a teacher, a lawyer. For those girls to win a championship, you see the tears, it means a lot to them. That’s why this league matters.”
Wickenheiser has been the face of Canadian women’s hockey for the better part of two decades. She’s competed as a pro in men’s leagues. She has won Olympic and world championship gold. And now she’ll get her name on the Clarkson Cup, the only major title to have eluded her.
“Having Wickenheiser on the team is amazing,” said Inferno captain Brianne Jenner, who had two goals and an assist. “She’s not the most talkative. But when she talks, everyone listens. It’s usually a very good message. She’s played in a lot of big games. I mean, we all grew up watching her. To have her on the bench, it’s invaluable.”
Two hours after the final result was in, the Inferno were still celebrating on the ice at the Canadian Tire Centre where a Clarkson Cup record crowd — announced at 4,082 — took in the game.
“We’ve had some really high highs, and some really low lows,” said forward Blayre Turnbull, who also has two goals for Calgary. “To come out here in and win in front of such a good crowd was really special for us. “It shows how much the game has grown and how much support the game has gotten. I wasn’t expecting such a big crowd. It added some more excitement to the game.”
Nine members of the Inferno, including Wickenheiser and Turnbull, will play for Canada at the women’s worlds in Kamloops at the end of the month. Three from Montreal, among them veteran goalie Charline Labonte, are also joining the national team.
Both teams wore the colours of their NHL brethren — making it look a bit like the Canadiens playing the Flames — in what the women’s league is just the beginning of a much bigger partnership with the world’s top hockey league.
The women are in it more for the love of the game than their male counterparts. There are no salaries in the CWHL, although their expenses are paid. The winners of the Clarkson Cup got $600 each, while Calgary goalie Delayne Brian got an extra $1,000 as the MVP. The losing team went home empty-handed.
“That is going to be a hard one to swallow,” said league MVP Marie-Philip Poulin of the Canadiennes, who went 21-3 in the regular season. “A hard one to put behind us. It doesn’t reflect the season.”
There are boardroom battles brewing that might be tougher than anything that happens on the ice. There certainly is no love lost between the five-team CWHL and the National Women’s Hockey League, a fourteam league based in the United States.
The NWHL completed its season on Saturday, and tweeted it was considering expansion to Toronto and Montreal.
“I think it was a very strategic move on their part,” said CWHL commissioner Brenda Andress, suggesting the newer league was trying to steal some of the Clarkson Cup thunder. “Really today is about celebrating the 40-odd players on the ice who spent all year training, passionately trying to get here. “It’s not about anything else.” Andress said she is open to merger talks with the NWHL. “We want to make sure the game continues to grow,“she said. “The CWHL has always believed in one league. We believe in the future, you have to do stuff to make women’s hockey succeed. You need to build it together.”