hockey

[dragonlady7]

watch women's hockey, so gay y'all, it's a great time, not to be wlw on main, but they skate real pretty ok

via https://ift.tt/3iG0DfY

so if you’re looking for something to do tonight and tomorrow the National Women’s Hockey League has podded up all their players and is doing their entire season at once at the ice arena in Lake Placid where that Olympics that they made the movie out of happened.

It’s on Twitch https://www.nwhl.zone/nwhl-on-twitch, it’s free to watch, currently (7-9EST) it’s Buffalo vs Connecticut, and it’s pretty good hockey. Right this instant it’s the first intermission and it’s the zamboni and the chat is going wild for it.

(If you’re already on Twitch it’s just user NWHL, you don’t have to watch it thru their weird website frame i linked to up there.)

Doing three games tomorrow too. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[rmc28]

I watched the first match (Toronto Six v Metropolitan Riveters) and the first period of the second (Boston Pride v Minnesota Whitecaps) yesterday but then it was getting late in my timezone so I went to sleep and am catching up last night's matches today ...

I fell into women's hockey last autumn, mostly watching the SDHL, and it's fun having commentary in a language I'm fluent in rather than one I'm only learning. The rink is quite a bit fancier than most of the SDHL rinks, although at least some of the Swedish teams have had the cardboard fan cutouts too: it's such a nice idea and I like how many other sportspeople have sent cardboard cutouts of themselves to the NWHL. (At least one big-name NHL player was donating subscriptions in the Twitch chat last night too.)

[dragonlady7]

The friend who's really really into NWHL (unicornduke) is a big Whale fan and of course I'm a (very casual) Beauts fan so we were texting one another in great anguish for the duration of the shootout! It was exciting, at least!

[rmc28]

It was very exciting!

[dragonlady7]

We were thinking, though, those poor women-- this is their first game of the season!! and they can't even really have been scrimmaging!!! so they must be so tired.

[rmc28]

So tired and they all have to play again today. The commentators were saying that the Buffalo team (who I decided to root for on basis of prettier uniform) had been split up across the Canadian border until like two days ago. So I thought they did really well playing together as well as they did.

[dragonlady7]

yes, the border is closed and they'd have to get special dispensation to cross it, so they rarely did--
it's actually closed enough that for major league baseball, the Toronto Bluejays actually moved their entire team to Buffalo and they redecorated the minor league arena that's downtown in Buffalo-- every surface a camera can catch in a broadcast is now aggressively Bluejays branded, but if you drive by the arena from the other side it's still all Buffalo Bisons markings. It's very weird and eerie actually!

[dragonlady7]

oh yeah and that is a super-fancy rink, that's the 1980 Olympics venue-- it's in the state where I live and I've been up that way a few times (Lake Placid) and the Olympic paraphernalia is SO WEIRD. There are sort of derelict ski jumps looming over part of the village, and then there's all this incredibly high-end shit and a tiny airport and mega-rich shit everywhere, and then you drive ten more miles and you're in the middle of goddamn nowhere. It's weird AF!

[rmc28]

I'm glad it's getting some normal (for 2021 values of normal) use then!

[unicornduke]

And like, there's a whole bunch of queer players! No trans players in the league this year but there have been in the past. At least 5 that I can name off the top of my head and one of the coaches who used to play (Ashley "Stretch" Johnston (played for Union and used to live in Albany and worked at U Albany maybe? she was an engineer, would drive to NEWARK THREE TIMES A WEEK for practice and games with the Rivs, now she lives in DC and coaches the rivs and she looks gr9 in a suit on the bench)). The captain of the Rivs, Madison Packer is married to Anya Packer who used to play for the Whale and is now head of the player's association and they have a tiny baby. I know of three rookies who are out and awesome and a couple of other players. Like. They queer here and it's amazing.