LOWELL — They dragged their exhausted bodies across the Tsongas Center ice, their slumped shoulders, hanging heads, and forlorn hugs telling the story of a frustrating night. A 3-0 loss in Wednesday night’s decisive Game 5 of the inaugural Walter Cup Finals left PWHL Boston’s players slumped in the painful postures of defeat.
They skated away into one last group hug knowing it would be Minnesota etching its names in the league’s record books, Minnesota taking its place in posterity, Minnesota remembered forever as the first-ever PWHL champion.
On this night, in this game, Boston was on the wrong side of history.
On the wrong side of history for the game; on the right side of history for the sport.
“Obviously it’s tough when you lose, especially Game 5 at home in front of amazing fans, but we just came up from the locker room all we were doing was reflecting, on how proud of our group we are, how we continued to persevere regardless of any odds thrown in our direction, how we fought,” team captain Hilary Knight said. “This year was a historic year. It was tough, something no player was ever used to. We built it. We’re extremely ecstatic about where it is Year 1.
“If anything, that reflection point is something we can take away from tonight and celebrate.”
As it turned out, a Minnesota celebration originally denied was merely a celebration delayed. When an apparent championship-winning goal was taken off the board in the second overtime of Game 4 because of goaltender interference, the door opened for Boston to steal the win just a minute later, forcing the all-or-nothing Game 5. But the toll of the season clearly wore more on Boston than on Minnesota, which behind the speed of playoff MVP Taylor Heise, the sharp goaltending of Nicole Hensley, and a defense that clogged every available lane for the home team, proved itself a deserving champ.
But not far from where the championship scrum of Minnesota players formed amid the discarded helmets, gloves, and sticks they’d tossed in front of their celebratory net, the Boston players had gathered together as well, raising their sticks in appreciation to a sold-out crowd who wasted little time shifting gears from sadness to gratitude.
“Thank you, Boston,” rained down from the rafters, as well as repeated chants of “Frank-el, Frank-el.” By the time goalie Aerin Frankel was announced as the game’s third star — her 41 saves the only reason Boston was even in the game — the crowd erupted in her honor.
With Frankel back in net next season, this soon-to be-renamed PWHL squad should retain its membership in Boston’s recent tradition of almost-good-enough-to-win-it-all local teams (one the Celtics could soon break if they win an NBA title), a worthy championship contender that, if it can find some more offense, should continue to be make noise in the six-team league. And continue to grow fans.
That Wednesday night’s game was such a hot ticket is a testament to what the PWHL has built in such a relatively short time, a product that delivered not just on the ice, though this five-game championship series has been a thrilling skill-fest, but off it, too. Fans continued to flock through the turnstiles, their appetite for the games growing through the playoffs, peaking with a Game 4 audience in Minnesota of more than 13,000 people and a rush on tickets for Game 5 as soon as Boston won that fourth game in a double-overtime thriller.
As a result, Tsongas Center was bursting at its seams, beyond sold out, a crowd of 6,305 fans filling every one of the available seats but also hovering from the balconies, hanging over the railings, sitting on barstools in concourse seating areas, standing two and three rows deep while overlooking the ice. The secondary ticket market moved into hundreds of dollars per ticket, merchandise lines snaked throughout the building, and the lucky ones in attendance wore their preferred green or purple with pride.
For those at home, the broadcast, available free on YouTube, has also been top-notch, complete with multiple cameras with many replay angles, knowledgeable announcers, and slickly produced features available for in-game pauses. It’s a production value that has not always been committed to women’s sports, which is why PWHL owner Mark Walter and the league’s advisory board were intent on changing that. Advisory board member Stan Kasten, a longtime sports executive who also runs the Los Angeles Dodgers, described before Game 3 in Minnesota how important he believed it was to go beyond the traditional one-camera, one-voice approach women’s sports has historically gotten.
“We made a conscious choice to spend a lot of money to make a major league professional broadcast,” Kasten said. “That’s what we delivered. It was expensive, but we think it’s going to pay off for us in the long run . . . The investments we made are paying off.”
The history of women’s hockey certainly didn’t begin Wednesday night, but with this league, with its unity among players and investment from management, with its intersection at this pivotal moment in women’s sports as a whole, the history is most certainly being rewritten. Boston didn’t earn the entry it wanted on this night, but these players understand the bigger stakes.
“This league took off and took off full throttle,” coach Courtney Kessel said, “more than we could have imagined as coaches and players. I think we should all be so proud. I know the effort every single player put forth in this league, it was a grind, something they’re not used to, but just so proud of our group how we battled back all year. And here we were, one game short.”
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.