PWHL
The PWHL kicked off its inaugural season in 2024, and there still hadn’t been a single fight more than halfway through its second. However, that’s no longer the case courtesy of the tilt we were treated to when a couple of players traded blows in a historic bout that was sadly cut short by the officials.
It’s been a decade since the first professional women’s hockey league to offer a salary was created in the form of the NWHL, which eventually found itself dealing with a competitor when the PWHPA popped up in 2019 and managed to lure away a number of players who were unhappy with the state of affairs in the other league.
A series of rebrands and acquisitions led to the dawn of a new era when the Professional Women’s Hockey League came into existence in 2023 and established itself as the premier destination for the best players on the planet. It held its first game on New Year’s Day in 2024 to usher in a season that eventually saw Minnesota beat Boston to secure the first-ever Walter Cup.
The six teams that comprise the PWHL got real, actual names ahead of the 2024-25 campaign where the regular season expanded from 24 to 30 games, and those squads are nearing the home stretch of a schedule that will see the playoffs get underway toward the beginning of May.
Most hockey fans devoted Thursday night to watching the 4 Nations championship showdown between the USA and Canada, but there was also a PWHL game on the slate thanks to the contest between the Boston Fleet and the Ottawa Charge.
The league’s rulebook states “Fighting is not a part of PWHL’s game,” and referees have the power to eject players on top of any other discipline they feel is necessary to hand out in the wake of an infraction.
That stipulation was enough to prevent any players from going at it since the inception of the PWHL, but that’s no longer the case after Ottawa’s Tereza Vanišová took exception to a series of checks from Boston’s Jill Saulnier before the two of them decided to go at it to treat us to the first fight in its history prior to the refs swooping in to diffuse the situation.
The first legitimate fight in the #PWHL. 🥊 @PWHL_Boston’s Jill Saulnier & @PWHL_Ottawa’s Tereza Vanišová square off. #PWHL@jill_saulnier @VanisovaTereza pic.twitter.com/L6fr5biVmv
— Melissa Burgess (@_MelissaBurgess) February 21, 2025
Each player received a double minor for roughing, and while Vanišová finished with a Gordie Howe hat trick after netting a goal and posting an assist, Saulnier and the Fleet walked away with a 3-2 victory in overtime.