Team will spread the gospel of women's hockey by playing its remaining 10 "home" games at various sites across Quebec.
Montreal Force coach Peter Smith says his team has taken a positive approach to a schedule that has them playing 22 of its 24 games outside the 514 area code.
“We have so many games on the road that are home games and we actually call all of our games home games,” Smith said after the Force suffered a 3-2 loss to the New Jersey-based Metropolitan Riveters on Sunday at the Raymond Bourque Arena in St-Laurent.
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The defeat left the Force with a split in its only regular-season games in the Montreal area. The Force, an expansion team in the Premier Hockey Federation, beat the Riveters 5-3 in their inaugural home game Saturday at the Verdun Auditorium. The team will spread the gospel of women’s hockey by playing its remaining 10 “home” games at various sites across the province, starting with two games against the Connecticut Whale next weekend in Sept-îles.
The loss left the Force with a 2-2 record and Smith said he is still sorting out special teams and the goaltending situation. Tricia Deguire made 19 saves for the win Saturday and Mare-Soleil Deschênes stopped 24 of 27 shots Sunday for Montreal.
“I thought Marie-Soleil was good today but, unfortunately, we turned the puck over in a bad area,” Smith said.
The bad area was in front of the net and Kelly Babstock scored with 52.8 seconds remaining in regulation time. She scored on a rebound after Deschênes stopped a shot from Riveters’ Sarah Bujold.
Smith said playing games is the key to the power play, which produced two goals Saturday, but went 0-for-4 Sunday and gave up a short-handed goal.
“We did some good things on the power play (but) I don’t think our puck recovery was done quite as well as it should have been,” Smith said. “I thought we had a shot mentality, but we weren’t getting as many second shots. The special teams take a while to materialize. We’ve had lots of practices, but we need more games.”
Brooke Stacey, a native of Kahnawake, gave the Force a 1-0 lead when she beat Finnish national team goaltender Eveliina Makinen during a goalmouth scramble.
The Riveters got that one back when Fanni Garát-Gasparics, the best forward to come out of the burgeoning women’s program in Hungary, scored on a short-handed breakaway. It was the third short-handed goal the Force has allowed in four games.
Madison Packer gave the visitors a 2-1 lead midway through the third period, but Christine Deaudelin tied the score at 14:35, 17 seconds after the Force came up empty on a power play.
Makinen, who has been to three Olympics without playing a game, had 25 saves in the win.
On Saturday, the Force attracted a PHF record crowd of more than 2,500. Jade Downie-Landry led the Force with three goals and an assist, while captain Ann-Sophie Bettez scored twice. Downie-Landry scored a power-play goal, an even-strength goal and a short-handed goal.
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