Danièle Sauvageau said there was so much interest in the Professional Women's Hockey League game at the Bell Center that she was looking for a way to get past arena security.
“People were after us like 'I need tickets,'” PWHL Montreal's general manager said Friday. “I had an event this morning — 'How can we get tickets tomorrow?' I said ‘Oh, maybe we can sneak you across the parking lot and in through the back door.’”
Montreal hosts Toronto on Saturday afternoon at home of the NHL's Canadiens, which is expected to set a women's hockey attendance record at the 21,105-capacity venue. The current record of 19,285 fans was set when both teams met at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena on February 16.
Superstar captain Marie-Philip Poulin recalls playing in front of 5,938 fans at the Bell Center in December 2016 when her Canadiennes de Montreal hosted the Calgary Inferno in the now-defunct Canadian Women's Hockey League in.
“It's strange, it was a dream that happened. And obviously you jump on that ice, you see empty seats,” Poulin said. “But you hoped that one day it would be packed.”
This time she will get her wish.
The building will be packed after tickets sold out within minutes of going on sale last month.
This is expected to be another milestone in the PWHL's eye-catching and record-setting inaugural season. Montreal players also see it as another sign of the growth of women's sports in a world where basketball player Caitlin Clark could become the biggest star at March Madness.
“I know for me there are a lot of people who don't even get tickets, so 21,000 isn't even enough,” Montreal goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens said. “People come, bring friends, they look for more tickets. It says a lot about the talent on the field, the level of play, the organizations, the level of media coverage.
“When we put all of those things together, that's what makes this possible. We saw it with March Madness and women's basketball — when we put it on TV, people watch, and I think women's sports is growing at an incredible rate right now.”
Montreal regularly sells out its main home stadium – the 4,000-capacity Verdun Auditorium. It also sold out the 10,000-seat Place Bell in Laval, Que., the team's secondary home.
With so much success, Sauvageau said competing in larger arenas will become more common in the future.
“Women's hockey is at the level of the sports industry and there is no going back,” she said.
But while the crowd will draw much of the attention on Saturday, there's also an important game on the ice.
Montreal sits third in the PWHL standings, two points behind league leader Toronto with four games remaining in the regular season for both teams. Toronto is just one point away from clinching a playoff spot and all Montreal needs is a regulation win.
“I know we're talking about playing in front of 21,000 of them, but at the end of the day our goal will be to win,” Poulin said. “We'll take a deep breath, look around and absorb it, but I think once the puck drops it's on.”
However, Toronto has Montreal's number. They have won all four meetings between the two sides and limited Montreal to a total of four goals.
Toronto striker Blayre Turnbull is hoping Montreal will come out to turn the situation around.
“The last few times we've played very tight games and they've been a bit spry, so I think we'll expect that again when we play them,” Turnbull said. “Some people online say it's become a competition and I have to agree.
“Our matches against them were very intense. They were playoff-like games.”
Having been eliminated twice by Toronto, Montreal will try to give those 21,000 fans a little more joy on Saturday.
“This will actually be the seventh skater for us,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “We are really going to have a great performance.”
“It's a hockey game that we need to win, we want to win and hopefully a lot of people will watch us win,” Sauvageau added.
