The Metropolitan Riveters fell to the Boston Pride 5-3 in a special Monday matinee matchup for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
While the game itself was a sellout, and the Twitch stream garnered over 10,000 viewers for the second week in a row, there was a much bigger story than what happened on the ice. The Boston Pride chose to join forces with SCORE Boston and Take the Lead, two organizations whose focus is to promote diversity and inclusion in sports and eliminate hate speech from hockey.
The team also hosted Stephanie Jackson for the ceremonial puck drop. Jackson is USA Hockey’s new Director of Diversity and Inclusion among other special offers from the team to promote the message of the holiday.
Game Summary
The Pride started off as they usually do despite having backup goalie Victoria Hanson in net. They looked very dominant and even went up 2-0 in the first period on goals from defender Lexi Bender, and rookie Tori Sullivan. With just under thirty seconds left, the Riveters leading scorer Kate Leary got the Metropolitan team on the board to make it 2-1 heading into the second period.
Early in the second period, Brooke Avery tied it up for the Riveters and the score remained so for the remainder of the second frame. McKenna Brand scored for Boston, but Tatiana Shatalova, who had an assist on the Avery goal got one right back to keep the Riveters in it late.
After some characteristic but poor penalties served by the Riveters, the Pride were able to score twice more and there just wasn’t enough time for Metro to earn anything back. After the game, Avery alluded to the team needing to play a full 60 minutes, a hockey cliche, but something not many teams have been able to do against the unmovable force that is the Boston Pride.
The Pride advance to 19-0-0 on the season after setting a league record with their 18-game win streak. They need just one more win to clinch first place officially.
Looking Ahead
The Riveters can definitely see the silver lining after this game. Despite sitting at 7-10 on the season, this Metropolitan team is still in third place and has only home games remaining for the season.
They only have to play the Pride once more and have no more games against the second-place Minnesota Whitecaps. Hopefully, they can gain some ground against the lower-ranked teams like the Beauts, who they play four times, and the Whale, who they play twice.
Next weekend, the Riveters will host the Whale for a two-game series on Saturday at 6:30 pm and Sunday at 4:30 pm EST. Both games can be streamed on the NWHL Twitch channel.
After that, the league will take a break for All-Star Weekend, which will be held in Boston, Feb. 8-9, including a Skills Competition and a two-period game at Warrior Ice Arena. The jerseys for this event have been released and are available for purchase as of today.