PWHL New York's debut at New Jersey's Prudential Center brought loud fans, heartfelt memories, and the potential for a future home for the team.
PWHL New York's debut at New Jersey's Prudential Center brought loud fans, heartfelt memories, and the potential for a future home for the team.
NEWARK, N.J. -- PWHL New York head coach Howie Draper felt the vibes, but he was more focused on managing the game plan than being able to soak in something extraordinary taking place inside the Prudential Center.
Courtney Kessel, who was also totally zeroed in on coaching Boston on the opposing bench to Draper's left, also experienced the energy in the building on a rockin' Saturday afternoon in Newark and was taken aback by the noise level and sheer excitement.
Both, however, said they definitely noticed the electric atmosphere during the television timeouts when players gather around their teammates by the benches and coaches can take some breaths and enjoy the breaks in the action whenever possible.
The noise meter on the huge video screen above center ice went off the charts on numerous occasions as the 5,132 women's hockey fans in attendance went wild waving white hankies, dancing and singing to the music and just screaming and shouting in delight at the experience.
Records and placement in the standings were secondary to having a blast while proudly showing off their New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Metropolitan Riveters and countless other jerseys worn by youth and amateur players.
The largest crowd for a New York home game this season relished every moment of the more than two hours of back-and-forth action on the ice, and the scene left both Draper or Kessel highly impressed.
Decibel Level At Max
"You know what? They were loud!" Kessel exclaimed during the post-game press conference at the arena affectionately known as The Rock. "You could hear them (in the) TV timeouts. I thought (the atmosphere) was great."
Kessel, whose Boston team is in the thick of the PWHL playoff race, loved the fact that such an important game could be played within that type of environment.
"We've come so far (as a league) in the past six or seven months, so it's pretty incredible to think that we're here today at the Prudential Center and seeing tremendous crowds both here and in Montreal with (a record-setting) 21,000 fans up there. "We just want to continue to grow this game and to have these (numbers of fans) on the same day is amazing."
Boston forward Lexie Adzija, who had many big moments collegiately less than 100 miles north from Newark in Hamden, Connecticut at Quinnipiac University, couldn't have asked for a bigger stage on which to score the decisive goal in her team's 2-1 victory.
"Any time you play in a venue (like the Prudential Center) it's pretty special, and to help my team get the win made it even more special," said Adzija, who not only secured her first goal since being traded to Boston from Ottawa but also savored her first game-winner in the league.
Draper was emphatic in his feelings about the crowd and the atmosphere in general.
"They were awesome; best crowd we've had so far at home," he said. "The energy that they brought and being with us the whole way ... they wanted us to win as much as we wanted to win and it's great having that kind of support."
A Homecoming Preview?
Draper was also straightforward when asked about the Prudential Center becoming PWHL New York's permanent home starting with the 2024-25 season. They would join the New Jersey Devils there as professional hockey tenants.
"There's a lot of great things about this venue. All of the venues we've played in have been great but you can almost see why this would be a good home," he said. "It has all the amenities ... the (New Jersey) market is maybe perhaps a little more supportive and that's not to take away from (Elmont and Bridgeport) but to have this kind of a crowd was really really exciting. We were treated very well. Very professionally."
New York's Madison Packer, who served as captain of the New Jersey-based Metropolitan Riveters of the Premier Hockey Federation and was a member of the Isobel Cup-winning 2018 squad, was asked about how it felt returning to the Prudential Center.
"I said before the game that I was hoping we would have a good crowd. I kinda knew we would. New Jersey has always been good to women's hockey," she said. "It was fun, it was loud and there was great energy in the building and hopefully we can find ourselves here more often."
Very Heartfelt Memories
Packer fought back tears when told of all the Riveters jerseys in the crowd and what that meant to her since that PHF team was such an important part of her life.
"It was good to see. Obviously that was a team I spent a lot of time with so ... it was good to see," said Packer, who became noticeably emotional and moved on to the next media question. She was the longest tenured player in PHF history.
And then there's New York assistant captain Alex Carpenter, whose dad Bobby played for the New Jersey Devils for six seasons and won a Stanley Cup. She said the Prudential Center holds a very special place in her heart.
"Some of my earliest childhood memories in hockey were here," said Alex Carpenter, who tried multiple sports as a kid and was the first girl (starting at age 10) to play in the Morristown, New Jersey Little League program after 25 years of only boys competing. "You could probably look around this building and find (Bobby) in a majority of these pictures here."
She was left overwhelmed by the energy and enthusiasm that the fans brought to the game against Boston.
"This was by far one of the best crowds we've had," she said. "We've been bouncing around home arenas quite a lot but this was a great turnout."