Minnesota Hands Charge 5-1 Loss On Emotional Night In Ottawa

Sometimes in sport, the game takes a back seat and becomes more than a final score, winning or losing. The X's and O's, saves and goals become less important. The cheers feel louder, the camaraderie stretches across the benches, and rivals become friends.

This matchup between the Minnesota Frost and Ottawa Charge, their first since last season's Walter Cup Finals, carried that emotional weight. This game marked the first following the team's announcement that head coach Carla MacLeod had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The stands were full of pink, tribute signs were everywhere, and breast cancer ribbons were worn, including by the Frost's coaching staff, all in support of MacLeod.

Many Charge players wrapped their sticks in pink tape for warmups, and fans had their chance to send appreciation and well wishes to MacLeod during the game's first television timeout, giving her a standing ovation.

Haley Irwin took over head coaching for the game while MacLeod remains in Calgary consulting with doctors to determine her treatment plan.

The Game

Minnesota scored 24 seconds into the game and added two more to take a 3-0 lead into the first intermission. The second period was scoreless, and while Ottawa was able to keep the shots on goal close throughout the game, Kendall Coyne Schofield finished with a hat trick to help the Frost win 5-1.

Instant Analysis

Let's start with the good.

As the game wore on, the Charge were able to find their footing again, led by the third line of Fanuza Kadirova, Kateřina Mrázová and Anna Shokhina. The team's fourth line of Sarah Wozniewicz, Alexa Vasko and Peyton Hemp was also effective while on the ice, and both lines finished with 10 shots on goal and four hits.

Defender Rory Guilday, who had two assists in the win over Vancouver, scored her first professional goal in the third period to break Minnesota starter Nicole Hensley's shutout bid.

Now for the bad.

It's always a challenge to climb back from an early 3-0 deficit, and that's where the Charge found themselves in this game.

Starter Gwyneth Philips looked uncharacteristically off to start, as she was slow to track pucks and was beaten on goals she would likely want back. The defence didn't do her any favours, struggling to exit the zone cleanly and often turning pucks over with soft or misdirected passes.

The forwards looked nervous with the puck, struggled to sustain offensive zone time, and were unable to setup any meaningful chances. They appeared flat footed and lacked the tenacity and physicality that drove their success against Vancouver.

Quotables

"It's obviously been an emotional, big week for us. With the news, everyone's processing it, and we wanted to come out hard for Carla. Definitely not the start, or first period, that we wanted to come out with. But we can be proud that we didn't give up, we took the lessons where they were, and got better as the game went on." - Emily Clark

Next Game

The Ottawa Charge start a five game road trip with a visit to Toronto to face the Sceptres on December 4 at 7:00pm EST. Toronto went 2-0 against Ottawa in the preseason.