Winter Classic Preview: Montreal Les Canadiennes v. Boston Pride
Women's Winter Classic, Foxboro, MA
Rumors began spreading December 5th when Hockey Night In Canada leaked information that the National Women’s Hockey League and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League would come together to play the first professional women’s hockey game outside. The two leagues would follow in the rivalry pitting the Boston Pride of the NWHL and Les Canadiennes of the CWHL at Foxboro in conjunction with the Winter Classic.
Talks between the two leagues and the NHL continued for the next three weeks and Monday the NHL Public Relations finally announced the details. The two teams will play at 2 pm on Thursday, December 31st at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro and the game will be known as The Women’s Winter Classic. According to the NHLPR press release, doors will open at 1:30 pm and tickets to the Alumni Game, which will be played at 3:30 pm, will also be valid for the women's game.
The Pride will be joined by 5 players from other NWHL teams to replace the eight players who will be at the USA Women’s Hockey training camp in preparation for the Women's World Championships in March.
The replacement players are denoted with a (*). The missing players are Kacey Bellamy, Brianna Decker, Alyssa Gagliardi, Zoe Hickel, Hilary Knight, Gigi Marvin, Amanda Pelkey and Jordan Smelker.
The Pride team is full of local stars. Kelly Cooke is an Andover native, Emily Field is from Littleton, Marissa Gedman is from Framingham (and the daughter of former Red Sox Catcher Rich Gedman), Jillian Dempsey is from Winthrop and played at Harvard, and Blake Bolden played her college hockey at Boston College.
Follow all the action on Twitter @MyWSports, on Periscope @MyWSports, Snapchat @MyWSports and get game recaps on MyWSports.com after the game!
