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Rumor is the New York team will play most of its home games this year in Bridgeport, CT, where the Bridgeport Islanders (B-Isles for short- and amusement) play. I could meet Miss18.1 for games, since she's close by for college. Pretty funny to see some guy go off about how only a Mickey Mouse league would have a team called New York playing in another state. It was like a batting practice fastball for a woman who replied "don't the NEW YORK Jets and NEW YORK Giants both play in New Jersey?" Why yes, yes they do.

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Venue info released for this season (hinting some will move for next season):

Toronto- Mattamy Athletic Centre, also known as the former Maple Leaf Gardens. Mattamy is currently used as the home ice of Toronto Metropolitan University.
Ottawa- TD Place Arena, home to the OHL's Ottawa 67s and the original venue for the first women's World Championship in 1990.
Montreal- Verdun Auditorium will host PWHL Montreal, seating just over 4000 fans, and also housing the team's practice facility on a separate rink.
Boston- Tsongas Center, home to the UMass Lowell hockey and basketball teams. In Lowell, MA, about 35 minutes from Boston.
New York- as rumored, Bridgeport, Connecticut at the 10,000 seat Total Mortgage Arena, home to the AHL's Bridgeport Islanders.
Minnesota- the 18,000 seat Xcel Energy Center, which is also home to the NHL's Minnesota Wild. The PHF's White Caps often filled a 1700 seat arena, but 18k? That will likely be a lot of empty seats.

I look forward to games in Bridgeport. I'll try to take some in before they move to the NYC area the following year.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

The regular season schedule is out. https://www.thepwhl.com/stats/schedule/all-teams/1/1

New York is playing at Bridgeport or UBS. Possible there will be some sort of affiliation with the Isles? They have a few games with time and location as TBD as well.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

NY takes the first ever PWHL game vs Toronto, 4-0.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Saw the PWHL has a rule that if you score a SH goal, your penalty is over. Love it! Gives extra incentive to push hard on the PK instead of just sitting back for 2 minutes.

One thing we found odd watching yesterday's game- the refs have purple stripes on their jerseys instead of orange. My whole family was kind of split on the matter. On one hand, it's cool that they're doing their own thing. On the other, why change something as common as the ref's jersey into something different? Especially when Minnesota's color is purple. That's going to create some confusion.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

It was nice to see all the PWHL hype yesterday. Really pulling for this league!

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Loving Levy's pads- https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1fGFAfgpL6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The NY team is signed onto the MSG networks for their TV network; same as the Isles, Devils and Rangers (whose ownership also owns the networks). It's getting pretty crowded, but I'm psyched to see them get a legit TV deal!

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Nice gear!

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Just realized they're using a 3 point standing system!

3 for regulation win
2 for OT/SO win
1 for OT/SO loss
0 for regulation loss.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Boy I'm torn on which to jump on.

New York has the best color scheme.

Boston has the league's best American player (Hilary Knight).

Ottawa has my favorite goaltender (Emerance Maschmeyer)

Montreal has the biggest star (Marie-Philip Poulin)

Minnesota has the biggest up-and-comer (Taylor Heise), another American superstar in Kendall Coyne Schofield (married to former Broncos O-lineman Michael Schofield), and my favorite defender (Lee Stecklein) but goddammit...it's MINNESOTA! I don't know if I can root for them, I can't stand the Wylde and Timberdogs.

Toronto has Sarah Nurse and Natalie Spooner, two big stars in their own right of course.

So...I guess....I'm rooting for Ottawa for now, but fully reserve the right to jump ship.

Incidentally, I'm somewhat surprised Emily Pfalzer Matheson and Amanda Kessel are nowhere to be found. Surely both of them still got plenty left in the tank, though perhaps neither really wants to play at this point.

I think your predicament is exactly what the league wants- so you'll hopefully watch every game.

I also think a few older players were concerned about tarnishing their careers by potentially not making a team, so they didn't even try out. The PWHL had 7 teams, and there was also the PWPHA, which I believe had 3 teams worth of players. Either way, they were condensing 9-10 teams down to 6, and including another round of college grads like Heise, so there was going to be roster number casualties.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Going to the Montreal at NY game tonight. First time going to UBS! Pretty psyched for this!

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Awesome game! NY with the win in the first every shootout in PWHL history. They use 5 shooters off the bat, but you can reuse shooters after 3, so MPP shot twice. Saved the 2nd time, didn't even get a shot off the first time.

Good hockey. They closed off about 1/3 of UBS for the game, with black curtains hanging over most of the closed sections. The Isles store was closed, which I found annoying since they sell lots of stuff you can't get elsewhere. The PWHL "store" was a few tables, kind of like a flea market/swap meet set up. I know they'll get more professional as they grow and have a set home rink, but that was kind of cheesy.

UBS itself is pretty cool. The Park outside is really cool, with public skating on outdoor rinks, beer garden, etc. But holy shit is food a total rip off! $8/slice of pizza! And it was shitty pizza! A whole pizza in the NY metro area should be like $16-18. So they're inflating that pricing horribly. A bottle of water was $8.98 with tax. $9 for water! I expect inflated prices, but that's bullshit.

Overall we had a great time. Lots of young girl hockey players wearing their jerseys. Entire teams showed up. Also lots of women in their 20s bumping into old teammates they hadn't seen/spoken to in years, which was cool to see. I look forward to more games. Probably go to one in Bridgeport this year. And even at UBS, we paid $43.50/ticket including all ticketbastard fees for 13th row. I think Isles tickets in that area are in the $200+ range.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Some interesting new rules announced.
Playoffs are going to be best of 5 series, with teams 1-4 making the playoffs. Gets interesting in that the first place team gets to select which of 3 or 4 they want to play in the opening round. That could lead to some drama.
Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention they begin accumulating points towards winning the draft lottery. Supposed to keep teams trying after they are out, but in a way it encourages tanking early. After that, the teams will pick in reverse order of finishing, with the champs selecting 6th, runner up 5th...

They've announced that this year's draft will be 7 rounds, with 42 players being drafted, which tells you there won't be expansion this summer. But adding SEVEN players to the system makes you wonder if they're encouraging massive cuts from rosters, will start a farm team, or allow for a much larger practice squad, which would essentially prep a lot more players for expansion next year. I'm leaning towards the latter.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Ah yes, the "Gold Plan" as they call it.

There's no way to entirely dissuade teams from tanking unless you eradicate the draft entirely. This at least makes it fun and requires a team to not entirely blow it up. I think it's a good idea, though I'm curious to see how it plays out.

One thing we're learning already--coaches are so maddeningly conservative that even in a 3-point system, teams are perfectly fine with settling for a two-point win. And I'm sure it would be the same in the NHL as well.

Yeah I want to see some of them go for the entertainment value and take some chances. But that's also probably because I'm a NY fan and they're now in last place. If they were in first I'd want them to be conservative about winning.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

The first PWHL game at the Bell Centre sold out in 20 minutes. You love to see it.

They just need a home for the NY team, then they'll be really solid top to bottom.

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I think they're essentially testing the market in NY by trying a few different arenas. They only sell like 2/3 of UBS, but the team being in last probably plays into that. The games in Bridgeport have mostly been on Wednesday nights. They've been selling, well, let's just say you could hear every word said on the benches during those games. I would go but Bridgeport is an hour away so not on school nights. We went to a weekend game at UBS. Looking to go to more.

Newark wasn't a big hit with fans for the Riveters. UBS is kind of hard to get to unless you live on LI. Bridgeport is a shithole besides the block the arena is on, and it's also not easy to get to. I've heard they're trying for MSG for one game. Easier to get to in general, more accessible for people north of the city, but still a bit of a pain. However, I wonder if some Ranger fans (majority of people around here) don't even know about this team/league at all, because it's seen as being associated with the Isles due to their playing locations so far. The team being in last place isn't helping their cause.

But yeah, it's awesome to see them selling out in most of the other cities, especially the larger arenas!

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Former Av/Maple Leaf Ken Klee left his then-new broadcasting gig at Altitude to take over head coaching duties at PWHL New York. For whatever reason they made a coaching change really early. Well...it didn't help. New York was dead last in its inaugural season (two wins on the year...yikes).

I'm still on the Ottawa (Alert?) bandwagon, though IMO Montreal has the best color scheme.

Do you mean the NWHL? The old league?

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.