Alexa Gruschow scored 5:33 into the game and playoff MVP goalie Katie Fitzgerald was nothing short of sensational as the Metropolitan Riveters beat the Buffalo Beauts to win the third edition of the NWHL's Isobel Cup.

"I thought it was a great hockey game," winning coach Chad Wiseman said. "It was great entertainment on both sides. The momentum switched sides and went back and forth quite often, maybe too much for my liking. But at the end of the
day, this team earned it, and they got the win."

The game was played at the New Jersey Devils practice facility, the RWJ Barnabas Health Hockey House in Newark, New Jersey.

The Beauts were making their third straight finals appearance, losing to Boston
two years ago and winning it all last year.

This was the seventh meeting of the year between the teams. The Riveters won the first three during an 11-0 start to the season, then Buffalo took the next three games. Today, the Beauts were the better team but they could not solve Fitzgerald, who recorded her second straight playoff shutout.

The Beauts advanced to today's finals by beating Boston, 3-2, in overtime last week, Sarah Casorsco getting the winner just 1:21 into the fourth period. The Riveters had a much easier path to today's game, Fitzgerald shutting out the Connecticut Whale, 5-0.

For Corrine Buie of Buffalo, it was her first loss in four straight women's league finals. She won the Clarkson Cup with the Boston Blades in 2015, the Isobel Cup with Boston in 2016, and the Isobel again last year with the Beauts.


The Riveters opened scoring on a fine solo effort by Gruschow, who led the league in scoring during the regular season. Her first shot was blocked by Rebecca Vint, but she got her own rebound and roofed a shot into the net while falling, beating a surprised Amanda Leveille in the Buffalo goal.

"I shot it, and the puck squeezed through the defender's legs, and somehow I got the shot up high," Gruschow said. "I don't know how it went in. I was falling down. They always say words can't describe it. I'm just ecstatic."

It didn't seem that that would be the one and only goal today. The Beauts peppered Fitzgerald with good-quality shots all game long, but the netminder would not concede a goal. Although shots were recorded as 21-18 for the Beauts,
those 21 might well have been all first-rate scoring chances.

The four-team NWHL consists of the Boston Pride, Connecticut Whale, Beauts, and
Metropolitans, and all four played a 16-game regular-season schedule prior to the playoffs. The Beauts finished first with a 13-3 record and the Riveters were right behind at 12-4. The champs were originally founded as New York Riveters before moving to New Jersey where they became the first NWHL team to partner with an NHL team, the New Jersey Devils.

The Isobel Cup is the short name for what is formally called the Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Cup. Isobel, the daughter of Lord Stanley, was famous at Rideau Hall in Ottawa for playing hockey at a time when her father fell in love with watching the game and eventually donated a trophy to be given annually to the best team in Canada. She is considered to be the first woman to embrace hockey so fully.

Today's Isobel Cup game was played just moments after the conclusion of the Clarkson Cup finals, emblematic of the women's champions in Canada's parallel league, the 11-year-old CWHL.

As both teams end their season on the same day, a season that included a spectacular gold-medal game at the 2018 Olympics just a month ago, opinions and
predictions and hopes focus on the two leagues merging to create one, unified and strong league, featuring the best women players in the world.

Isobel Cup Champions:
2015/16 Boston Pride
2016/17 Buffalo Beauts
2017/18 Metropolitan Riveters

ANDREW PODNIEKS

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