Vancouver Goldeneyes & Seattle Torrent play their 1st ever regular season PWHL game at the Pacific Coliseum

Last night was a major moment in Vancouver sports. But also, not a first.... and yet, also a first. (if you are here for photos, they are at the bottom, divided into 3 sections)

*any fan sites, or other online sites who want to use the photos, please DO NOT remove watermarks (and I would appreciate you linking back to this blog post), or I will be required to file a copyright claim on you. If anyone from the Vancouver Goldeneyes, Seattle Torrent, or the PWHL, including the players, want copies of the photos, please send a request HERE & once I can confirm you are who you say you are, I will happily fill the request)

The Vancouver Goldeneyes, the expansion PWHL franchise took to the ice for their 1st Regular Season game at the Pacific Coliseum in East Vancouver. The Coliseum is no stranger to major ice hockey. It had the WHL Vancouver Giants for several years, before the team moved to become the Langley Giants. Of course, the Rink on Renfrew is better known in this city as the original, and still, more liked, home of the NHL Vancouver Canucks, till they relocated to a more modern & corporatey looking building in downtown Vancouver, GM Place (now Rogers Arena). This arena has hosted Stanley Cup games in 1982 & 1994, the Memorial Cup 1977 when the local New Westminster Bruins won, and again in 2007 when the Vancouver Giants won. It hosted a game from the 1972 Summit Series. The 2006 World Junior Hockey Championships also played games there. So having a major moment in this arena isnt a 1st for the Pacific Coliseum. But it was a first for Major Womens Hockey in the Pacific Coliseum.

This also wasnt a 1st for a Vancouver area womens hockey team in a Nation wide league. The Vancouver Griffins (NWHL 2000-03) played in New Westminster. It also isnt a first for a Vancouver based team in an international league, as the B.C. Breakers (2004-09 WWHL) played around the Province throughout their 5 seasons. But it is the first womens hockey team to play in a major stadium in Vancouver, as the Queens Park Arena only has a capacity of around 3500. Nothing compared to the 15K capacity of the Pacific Coliseum.

Wouldnt you know it, the very first game for the Goldeneyes SOLD OUT! Their opponent on this night? The Seattle Torrent, another expansion team, also playing their 1st ever game. I went to the game, and got to have a little dejavu being in there. But sadly, there were a lot of changes as well that were not for the better....but we'll get to that later. You came here to hear about the game & see photos.

There was a long ceremony first introducing every player on the Goldeneyes roster. Then a ceremonial puck drop with Olympic Gold Medal winning soccer star Christine Sinclair. She dropped the puck between Ashton Bell, and Hilary Knight, the Captains for the two squads. Then came the National Anthems for both countries, and despite the hostility Canadians currently have for the American government, there was no booing like there has been at other high profile Canada vs USA events. Then the Canadian anthem was played, and we got ready for the first official puck drop.

The starting goaltenders for both teams would be Corinne Schroeder for the Torrent, and Emerance Maschmeyer for the Goldeneyes.

Hannah Miller, a local girl, took the 1st face off in Goldeneyes history against Mikyla Grant Mentis for the Torrent. Seattle won the opening face off, and the game was under way. There was an early penalty, not that you would know about it if you got into the game a bit late, as the stats clock never showed it (they "fixed" this later...I'll rant about problems later), Anna Wilgren got the 1st penalty in Torrent history at 1:24 of the game. The first moment I think that people really remembered was when Goldeneyes Abby Boreen would get a breakaway that she was unable to bury. 

The 1st goal in Seattle Torrent team history (and the 2nd) would go to Julia Gosling. Anna Wilgren & Alex Carpenter would get the first ever Torrent assists on the goal. Three minutes later, Goldeneyes superstar Sarah Nurse, would steal the puck at centre ice, and break in down the right wing to score with a wrister to tie the game at 1. Julia Gosling would add 1 more goal before the period ended, assisted by their superstar player Hilary Knight, and the Seattle Torrent had a 2-1 lead going into the 2nd period.

In the 2nd period, there was no goals, and I will personally say, I think the play seemed a little sloppy through large parts of the period for both teams. Only thing in that period I really recall is Seattle Torrent defencewoman Aneta Tejralova got injured & had to be helped off the ice. This brings us to the 3rd period where Goldeneyes Gabby Rosenthal would score the 2nd goal in franchise history, Abby Boreen & Claire Thompson would get the first ever assists in team history. That goal was at only 59 seconds. I cant tell you how it happened, because I was in line for food.... another rant later on that. Vancouver would take their 1st ever penalty half way through the 3rd period when Brooke McQuiggie got an interference call. With just over 6 minutes left in the game, Seattle took their 3rd different lead of the night when Hannah Bilka scored, assisted by Danielle Serdachny and Emily Brown. But the Goldeneyes showed in their 1st game they have the resolve to fight back when down, as they had done twice already in the game to twice tie up the game after giving Seattle the lead. So it should come as no shock that they did it 1 more time, when Claire Thompson scores her 1st goal as a Goldeneyes player, assisted from McQuiggie & local star Jenn Gardiner with 2:03 left in the game.

The game would head to overtime, where the teams played a 3 on 3 format, with a 5 minute clock. But it did not take the whole 5 minutes, as Abby Boreen, who started the game with a hopeful breakaway that she didnt bury, got the game winner, after a cross ice pass from Teresa Vanisova on to Boreens stick, she slide a wrister through Torrent goaltender Corinne Schroeder to give the Goldeneyes a win in their 1st ever game. The Goldeneyes win 4-3 in overtime. Giving the Goldeneyes a record of 0-1-0-0 for 2pts, and Seattle Torrent start their PWHL existence with a point, and a record of 0-0-1-0.

Now on to some nitpicks (mainly with the arena, and some with the team)

- Entering the arena. For whatever reason they have put up weird fences around the front of the Pacific Coliseum, which in turn pushes the crowds back 100 feet, and caused crowds to flood out onto the street before the game to get through the ONE entrance point from most people know on Renfrew. 

- Bag check is OUTSIDE the building 200 feet away. Pretty dumb place to put it. Easy for people to forget about going there, especially if they came in from any other entry point, and have to walk the entirety of the stadium back there to find it. It should be inside if you are going to force people to check backpacks. Also, charging $10 for something YOU want us to do is criminal. After all "I" am not the one wanting to do this, you are. 

- The scoreboard. EIGHTY TO NINETY PERCENT of the scoreboard is an ad. They have crammed the teams logos into small unrecognizable slivers, made the SOG so small you need binoculars to read them and made the penalty clock (which they didnt even bother putting up for the 1st penalty) just as small, maybe even smaller. The old Coliseum clock, you never were unaware of the SOG & penalty times, they were easily visible even from the furthest seats from the screen. The disrespect of the PNE, or the Goldeneyes, whomever OK'ed this design, of their fans to make the actual scoreboard an after thought for whoring out ads is disgusting. Fire whoever made that decision.

- Food stands vs alcohol stands. I believe I counted 5? Food stands if you include the 1 downstairs that few people were at, and still moved abysmally slow. Every single food stand had forever long lines. The one I went to in the 2nd intermission, I stood there for the entirety of the 2nd intermission, and several minutes into the 3rd, and got no food, because in that entire time I was there, they only served FIVE people. Yes, FIVE people in 20-25 minutes. This is not an exaggeration. I counted how many people were ahead of me when I got there, 16 or 17, and there was still 12 ahead of me when I gave up. ON THE OTHER HAND, there were so many alcohol vendors there, that I lost track how many, but its in the double digits, and surprise surprise, NOT ONCE did I pass one and see anyone in line at them. NOT. ONCE. The crowd was probably about half youths. So you have a dozen stands for a product half can not buy, and another half probably arent going to purchase..... vs 5? (could have been 4) places to buy food. Fun fact, in the lower level, they only had 1 of the two food stands even open down there. Opening that one could have alleviated the pressure on the others by 20%.

- Food stands incompetence. I already touched on this, about the speed. I also before the game started, stood in line at a different stand for food, before also giving up when I frankly couldnt see proof it was even moving after 7-8 minutes. It was never like this when I used to go there for Giants & Canucks games. What happened? 

- No food/drink vendors. NOT ONCE in the entire game did I see a food/drink vendor going through the stands. This is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the forever lines I just mentioned. It also is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for this next issue.

- Crowded concourse. Since you are forcing everyone to go into the concourse to get food/drinks, on top of going to the washrooms, it was the most crowded I have ever seen in this arena, and I was in there during Stanley Cup games when the attendance was higher than this game (but wait, how is that possible, this was a sell out.).

- Standing Room sections removed to put in more alcohol stands. Thats another 500 tickets roughly you could have sold.....but didnt.

- Lack of souvenir stands. When the Canucks were there, there was 1 in each corner of the arena, along with Winning Spirit, the full sized store. When the Giants were there, they had the little souvenir "store" the Goldeneyes have adopted as the "main" store, as well as a booth in each corner. The Goldeneyes went with the 1 "main" booth, and 2 very very small booths at the start of the game, but closed them down at some point, forcing everyone to go to the 1 & only souvenir store, leading to laughably long lines (literally like the food lines).

- Washrooms only had glaciers in January cold water for the faucets. It was jarring how cold the water was. 

- Any trace of the past in the building erased. There is nothing in the building showing that it used to be the home of the Canucks, or the Giants. Kind of disrespectful.

Now, onto problems with the team AND leagues management.

- NO PROGRAMS. Your first ever game, and you have no programs? No way for people to know the rosters without using their phones? It doesnt have to be 50 pages long like the old 80s programs, a simple 4-6 page program would have sold out just the same. This is some team management incompetence.

- The DJ & video tron team. The DJ frequently was playing music far longer than he should. Three or four times I saw the ref/linseperson ready to do a face off & the music would still go for like 5 more seconds. He seems to be under the delusion people came there to hear his mediocre music choices. The videotron person is also grossly unqualified. Dozens of times, they just had whatever random camera live feed when people were looking to see a replay. ESPECIALLY during the contest penalty & goal calls. he clearly has no idea where the buttons are to switch from live to recorded & back.

- Nowhere on their website does it state you cant bring bags into the arena. Another issue with things not stated on their page I will bring up in a later point.

- No one answers their emails. I emailed them on October 1st & the 15th about a Seasons Ticket question, along with another question. The only reply they ever sent me, was about a cookie cutter reply about "job opportunities". I attempted to contact them through social media by DMing & @ messaging them on twitter, and instagram. No replies there. Theres no listed phone number for them, so theres no way to contact them that way either. Simply put, good luck getting any info out of them for literally anything.....even as important as seasons tickets.

- The PWHL is also poor on replying to emails. I first emailed them (through the email listed on the website) on Nov. 8 to get some type of reply since the Goldeneyes dont answer their emails. I got nothing. So I tried a different email that I found out about, ironically from the Goldeneyes twitter (yeah I know, an account that doesnt answer messages telling people where to send messages), and emailed that one on the 18th. They literally replied back at 11:30 AM on gameday to my question. I realize you probably get dozens of emails a day during the regular season. But I think 3 days for a reply is pretty poor. I also have a few nitpicks about the PWHL website, but maybe another day I will address that (but the main one is when you go to a players stat page, they have them ALL backwards. Should go from oldest season to newest, but they have them in the reverse).


Now, for positives.
+ The new jumbotron is better than the old one.
+ The amount of images of Goldeneyes players around the building is a nice touch.

PHOTO GALLERIES are separated by "Mixed" (photos with players from both teams, except celebration shots), "Vancouver Goldeneyes" (photos of exclusively Vancouver Goldeneyes players, or celebrations), & "Seattle Torrent" (photos of exclusively Seattle Torrent players, or celebrations)

PHOTOS - MIXED 
Where possible - photos will have player names added.

SEATTLE TORRENT PLAYERS

Where possible, I will add the players names.
Players included in these photos are - #2 Aneta Tejralova, #3 Cayla Barnes, #8 Natalie Snodgrass, #9 Jesse Eldridge, #10 Jenna Buglioni, #11 Emily Brown, #13 Mikyla Grant Mentis, #17 Brooke Bryant, #19 Hannah Bilka, #20 Mariah Koepple, #21 Hilary Knight, #23 Megan Carter, #25 Alex Carpenter, #30 Corinne Schroeder, #66 Marah Wagner, #78 Lexie Adzija, #83 Hannah Murphy, #88 Julia Gosling, #92 Danielle Serdachny
Player missing from this section of photos - #5 Anna Wilgren

VANCOUVER GOLDENEYES PHOTOS

Where possible, I will add players names.
Players included in these photos are #7 Madison Samoskevich, #8 Izzy Daniel, #9 Katie Chan, #11 Sydney Bard, #12 Jenn Gardiner, #13 Teresa Vanisova, #15 Gabby Rosenthal, #16 Sophie Jacques, #20 Sarah Nurse, #21 Ashton Bell, #22 Abby Boreen, #23 Mellissa Channall Watkins, #25 Emma Greco, #26 Brooke McQuiggie, #33 Michelle Karvinen, #34 Hannah Miller, #38 Emerance Maschmeyer, #42 Claire Thompson, #50 Kristen Campbell, #72 Darcie Lappan, #86 Michela Cava. Also includes Team Canada womens soccer star Christine Sinclair.