For just about a decade, Jill Saulnier used to be an power sequence ahead for the Canadian ladies’s nationwide workforce, successful two Olympic medals and a global championship.
Now she will upload a brandnew sequence to her resume: She threw the 1st actual punches within the historical past of the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League, in a battle with Ottawa ahead Tereza Vanišová.
“We were battling out there,” Saulnier instructed The Athletic. “She got a hold of my stick and dropped it down, and that was just kind of the green flag for me …. I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
The primary authentic battle within the #PWHL. 🥊 @PWHL_Boston’s Jill Saulnier & @PWHL_Ottawa’s Tereza Vanišová sq. off. #PWHL@jill_saulnier @VanisovaTereza pic.twitter.com/L6fr5biVmv
— Melissa Burgess (@_MelissaBurgess) February 21, 2025
The Feb. 20 battle right through a match between the Boston Fleet and Ottawa Rate used to be the first-ever within the PWHL and one of the most league’s maximum viral moments.
Fights aren’t completely brandnew to girls’s hockey. There used to be a sequence brawl between Canada and the US at a pre-tournament game forward of the 2014 Olympics, and any other within the now-defunct Nationwide Ladies’s Hockey League in 2016.
There are generally heavy hits and scrums next whistles on the skilled and world degree. However those moments — with fists flight — had been few and a ways between.
For the avid gamers concerned within the PWHL’s first battle, it used to be only a herbal a part of the ladies’s match and a manufactured from the higher physicality allowed within the league.
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“It’s a heated game, it’s a physical game, and we’re all very competitive,” stated Saulnier, now a ahead for Boston next a January trade from the Brandnew York Sirens. “It’s just the way that the chips kind of fell in the corner.”
The build-up to the battle incorporated a collision and a minimum of two difference crosschecks through Saulnier towards Vanišová, one in all Ottawa’s lead scoring forwards. When Vanišová were given up, she threw Saulnier’s persist with the farmland.
“I felt like the warranted next move was a hard right,” Saulnier stated. “In the moment, it was physical and that fight had to happen. It was right there and it was a message from each side.”
Neither participant dropped their gloves, as is standard in males’s hockey, given ladies’s avid gamers put on complete cages that offer protection to their face — now not visors like maximum NHLers put on, which let go maximum in their face uncovered. In each leagues, avid gamers aren’t allowed to take away their helmets to battle.
“You’d just look silly to fully drop the gloves,” Saulnier stated, given they’d be punching a cage with their naked palms.
The just about 6,000 fanatics at TD Park Enviornment in Ottawa have been on their ft. So have been the avid gamers on every bench. 5 mins next the battle, Ottawa defender Ronja Savolainen scored to create the sport 2-1 overdue within the 3rd duration. When Vanišová were given out of the penalty field, she scored with most effective 3 seconds left within the match to ship it to time beyond regulation and sign in the 1st unofficial “Gordie Howe hat trick” within the league’s historical past — when a participant rankings a purpose, assists on a purpose and fights in the similar match.
“I thought it was awesome, it got the fans going,” Saulnier stated. “I’m sure I’ll get a couple boos next time I go in there, but please know, it was all respectful and it was a lot of fun.”
Ottawa in the end misplaced 3-2 in time beyond regulation and Saulnier and Vanišová shared a past within the postgame handshake sequence to mention, “Nice fight.”
“You see the intensity of the game and that’s the fun part of this league,” stated Ottawa teacher Carla MacLeod next the sport. “Neither player backed down and I suspect there will be a little bit of buzz about it, which is never bad for the game either.”
The battle made international information with headlines in TMZ and the Day-to-day Mail, shops that don’t usually defend ladies’s hockey. And it went viral on social media month 16 million family throughout North The us have been observing Canada and the US within the 4 International locations Face-Off finale.
Within the latter while, fanatics have given Saulnier bracelets that charm out “Fight Club” in beads and T-shirts that say “Jill Saulnier Fight Club,” which one in all her society participants wore to Boston’s match towards Montreal on the Bell Centre on Saturday.
“I think more people reached out than when we won a gold medal,” stated Saulnier, a member of the 2022 Canadian Olympic workforce. “Obviously you shouldn’t fight every game, but I think it was actually good because it got more eyes on the league.”
The PWHL, which most effective formally began in January 2024, will pull the publicity. The battle used to be additionally a pleasing little bit of evidence that the league is stuffed with professional avid gamers who can play games with finesse and velocity, but in addition embody physicality. Nonetheless, fights aren’t one thing they need to be the norm.
The league’s rulebook obviously states that “fighting is not part of the PWHL’s game.” And earlier than latter day’s altercation, there wasn’t a ton of readability on what consequences referees may impose alternative than that avid gamers who battle might be penalized and is also ejected from the sport.
Saulnier and Vanišová have been most effective given roughing minors for his or her battle, which led to a few hesitancy over the principles. Last week, the league clarified {that a} battle will now be penalized with a 5-minute primary penalty and a match misconduct, with a chance of additional self-discipline following a overview and bearing in mind repeat offenders.
Consistent with Saulnier, Boston normal supervisor Danielle Marmer cries it “the Jill Saulnier rule.”
The brandnew regulations must deter avid gamers from regularly combating. In a snip, 30-game season, avid gamers will not be prepared to sit down out an difference match simply to provide their workforce a spice up of power post-fight. The apparatus barrier may even proceed to be a herbal deterrent for combating in ladies’s hockey.
Past that, combating is a ways from familiar at alternative ranges of the ladies’s match. Even bodychecking hasn’t ever been authorised in early life women hockey, which means that the ones talents aren’t usually taught. In boys hockey, bodychecking is offered on the under-14 degree and through the month a participant will get to the pro degree, combating has very a lot been a part of the sport.
Saulnier doesn’t suppose her battle goes to viewable the floodgates to extra moments like that going forward. However, she stated, it unquestionably gained’t be the latter month we see a battle in ladies’s skilled hockey.
“With the level of physicality, you’ll never not see it in the PWHL,” she stated.
(Representation: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Pictures: Troy Parla / Getty Photographs)
