In the final minutes of the championship game, fans marveled as goaltender Kassidy Sauve made a few heroic saves, including a flashing glove, to help Team Turnbull complete a 3rd-period comeback, forcing overtime.
In three-on-three overtime, Brigette Lacquette finished off the comeback to make Team Turnbull the champions of the weekend tournament as the sold-out crowd went wild (and shouted out a few “WOO” screeches).
Philadelphia isn’t an area where there are many opportunities for female hockey players. It was the first stop on the Dream Gap Tour that doesn’t have any kind of women’s hockey presence for women after college. This event gave the girls in the audience a chance to finally see their role models play live
“When I grew up playing here, you had to travel pretty far and to see the growth that we’ve accomplished in the last five, six years this has been really incredible,” said Kelsey Koelzer, a Horsham native who played at the collegiate level for Princeton and was drafted first overall in the 2016 NWHL Draft, “It is very grassroots level at this point but ya know I think that them having the opportunity to see such an amazing product and see where hockey can take them is something that’s really important to motivate them to stick with the game and introduce them to the places hockey can take them.”
When the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) ceased operations suddenly in 2019, the future of the sport was in question. A large number of the league’s players issued a joint statement that they wouldn’t play in any North American league for the upcoming 2019-20 season.
From that resolution came the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association, and the Dream Gap Tour. The goal is not just to get in front of fans, although building a loyal audience for women’s hockey is incredibly important. The main goal for the Dream Gap Tour is to eventually earn a league with infrastructure and financial security and to expand the opportunities that young girls have access to.
“The biggest frustration I think for us as players is knowing that we have a great product and that visibility component and we don’t have the right platforms to really show and showcase a product.” Said Hilary Knight, Olympic Gold medalist and one of the most recognizable names in women’s hockey. “I think that’s what’s been instrumental with this year is, we’ve had these channels and opportunities to increase the visibility of the game and we’re going to continue to do that.”
The Dream Gap Tour games have been live-streamed on the PWHPA’s Youtube channel and have recently been added as a streaming option on ESPN, opening up the events to a much wider audience than just their sold-out crowds.
The Tour’s next stop is in Arizona and you can grab tickets here. You can read more about the PWHPA on their website.
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