Todd: Montreal posts playoff Victoire for the ages

Montreal Gazette

12-05-2025

By
The reaction was a beat slow, as though the players couldn't quite believe it.
At 15:33 of the fourth overtime period Sunday, Catherine Dubois had taken a nifty pass from Kristin O'Neill in the slot and whipped a quick wrist shot that beat Ottawa goaltender Gwyneth Philips high to the glove side to end the longest game in PWHL history with a 3-2 victory in Game 2 of their best-of-five semifinal.
A moment later, Montreal Victoire players were storming off the bench and mobbing the tall figure of Dubois along the glass. Dubois herself was stunned.
'I blacked out,' she said. 'I don't really remember what happened, I just remember the girls coming towards me. We dealt with the opposite last year and it hurt, so I'm really happy we came away with the win.'
Heroes? Laura Stacey had 12 shots on goal and Poulin had eight. Philips stopped 53 of 56 shots. But the star of the night was Montreal goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens, who faced 65 shots and stopped 63.
When Dubois scored, you could feel the sigh of relief that rippled through the organization. In their short existence, the Victoire have already gained a reputation as a dominant regular-season team, but they haven't carried it into the playoffs. They were swept by the Boston Fleet in their opening series in 2024 and lost the first game of this series to Ottawa.
It's both unfair (they have, after all, played only five post-season games) and odd, given that captain Marie-Philip Poulin is arguably the greatest clutch player in the history of the women's game.
Mind you, Montreal hasn't won a thing except, perhaps, steadier nerves. They're back on the ice in Ottawa Tuesday night and while they're the significantly better team on paper, the games aren't played on paper.
The seedy underbelly: No doubt, Gary Bettman is grateful for the NHL playoffs that are taking attention away from the more sordid aspects of the game of hockey, which were on full display last week:
From London, Ont., we were getting regular updates on the trial of five former junior players accused of sexually assaulting an inebriated young woman. One after another, the assembled legal talent representing these young men went after the alleged victim.
Closer to home, Noah Corson, the son of former Canadien Shayne Corson, was sentenced to two years in prison minus a day for sexual assault.
In Anaheim, the Ducks announced that they have hired Joel Quenneville, one of the pivotal figures in the Chicago Blackhawks scandal involving Kyle Beach, a young player in the Blackhawks organization, who had been sexually assaulted by former video coach Brad Aldrich. Quenneville was part of what an NHL investigation showed was an 'inadequate response,' along with former Chicago GM Stan Bowman (now GM in Edmonton).
Also on the list of those hired last week? Eric Staal, taken on as a special assistant to the GM in Buffalo despite his refusal to wear a pride jersey.
Bare Knuckles: It hasn't opened yet, but the one-man show titled Knuckles: the Chris Nilan Story should be worth the price of admission.
If you haven't already, you might want to read the book first. The majority of autobiographies are, inevitably, self-serving twaddle. They pretend to be candid while hiding the worst from view.
Not Knuckles. He punches straight from the shoulder. Right or left, Nilan will always tell it as he sees it and his book is as raw as anything I've ever read: You laugh, you weep, you want to grab him and give him a good shake (at your peril).
Nilan is a legend, up there in the pantheon of Canadiens tough guys with John Ferguson and Pierre Bouchard, his battered mug and Boston accent as iconic as Guy Lafleur's flowing mane. But beyond the legend there is a man with more than his fair share of demons. We're fortunate that he has stories to tell and he's willing to share.
He be the Judge: Aaron Judge got four hits Sunday to hike his batting average to .409. He leads the majors in batting average, hits, home runs (tied with Kyle Schwarber), runs batted in, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS. And he's doing it despite a strike zone suited to the NBA.
Because he doesn't pitch, Judge gets less attention than the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani but at worst, the two towering superstars (one for each league) are equals. Over the past half-century, the Lords of Baseball have done their level best to wreck the game — but having two of the greatest players in the long history of baseball playing for the two most iconic teams just might save it.
Heroes: Catherine Dubois, Laura Stacey, Kristin O'Neill, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Gwyneth Philips, Jacob Fowler, Florian Xhekaj, Owen Beck, David Reinbacher, Pascal Vincent, Prince Owusu, Mikko Rantanen, Aaron Judge, Lamine Yamal, Martin St. Louis &&&& last but not least, Lane Hutson.
Zeros: Auston Matthews, Max Domi, Joel Quenneville, Stan Bowman, Eric Staal, Noah Corson, Justin Tucker, Gary Bettman, Mark Stone, Wayne Gretzky, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.