Having the option of choosing their playoff opponent wasn’t taken lightly by the staff and players of the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Toronto franchise for clinching first-place in the standings.
So sensitive and in-depth were the discussions, coach Troy Ryan knew better on Monday night than to disclose the reasons behind Toronto’s decision to face fourth-place Minnesota over third-place Boston — two teams who finished with identical 12-9-3 records (including four OT/SO wins apiece), with Boston having the tiebreaking edge.
“To be honest, from a hockey perspective, I think it would be somewhat irresponsible to tip my hat to the exact details,” Ryan said. “So at this point, we’ll keep that within house.”
Of all the aspects taken into consideration, ranging from analytics, head-to-head records, travel and injuries, among the most important, perhaps, was the fear of providing their opponent any additional motivation entering the best-of-five semifinal series, which opens in Toronto on Wednesday. Montreal, which finished second, will face Boston in the other semifinal starting on Thursday.
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Minnesota coach Ken Klee expressed little surprise in Toronto’s decision by saying: “To me, that’s who I expected.”
Boston coach Courtney Kessel couldn’t help but envision what her player’s reaction would have been had they been selected.
“I think it’s a good thing and a bad thing to kind of be in their position,” Kessel said of Toronto. “I think if they would have chosen us, we would have had a little bit more fuel, you know, like them thinking that they can beat us in choosing the third-place team.”
Toronto’s Natalie Spooner (24) battles for position with Minnesota’s Lee Stecklein (2) in front of goaltender Maddie Rooney (35) during the third period of a PWHL hockey game in Toronto on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
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Frank Gunn | The Canadian Press via AP
Leave it to the PWHL to provide an intriguing plot twist entering the playoffs, and following its inaugural 72-game regular season in which the playoff race wasn’t settled until the final game. Toronto played a central role in determining the final standings with its season-ending 5-2 win over Ottawa on Sunday night eliminating Ottawa from contention and securing Minnesota its playoff berth.
The concept of teams selecting playoff opponents has long been entertained in theory in North America’s four major pro sports, but yet to become a reality. The Southern Professional Hockey League introduced a pick-your-opponent first-round playoff format in 2018 before abandoning it two years later.
Toronto’s decision to choose Minnesota as its playoff opponent made sense in various aspects.
Toronto had a 3-1 record against Minnesota in the regular season, while going 3-2 against Boston. Minnesota closed the season losing its final five games, while Boston went 3-1-1, including a 2-1 win over Toronto.
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Klee acknowledged travel as being an issue, with Minnesota logging the most air miles in a league whose other five teams are concentrated in the northeast.
“If I was (Toronto), I would say who has the furthest to come and has the toughest travel to get here,” Klee said. But in my mind, our group’s excited. We’re in the playoffs.”
Toronto GM Gina Kingsbury said the process in determining which opponent to select began last week after Toronto clinched first place. Kingsbury first consulted with Ryan before getting feedback from the team’s leadership core and eventually the entire roster.
“In the end, it wasn’t an easy decision. Minnesota was not the necessarily the lead in that right away,” Kingsbury said. “There were a lot of pros and cons on picking Boston or Minnesota. And in the end we just went with what seemed to be a little more pros than cons.”
Toronto captain Blayre Turnbull said the most important thing to remember during the selection process was players focusing on their team and not the opponent.
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“No matter who we picked, there’s going to be some people that might think we should have gone the other way,” Turnbull said. “But I think at the end of the day, no matter who we’re going to face in the semifinal round is going to be a really tough opponent.”
BOSTON (WHDH) – The Boston Pops are preparing for their Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular this weekend with half a million people expected to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday on the Charles River Esplanade.
The President and CEO of Boston Symphony Orchestra said an even bigger celebration is being prepared at the hatch-shell this year.
“Everything is bigger. You only turn 250 once!” said Chad Smith, President and CEO of Boston Symphony. “We recognize that Massachusetts has been a center of revolution, not just in the Revolutionary War, but through the last 250 years. That spirit, sense of innovation, the sense of pushing our country forward is going to be on display as well.”
Organizers are bringing in lighting, sound equipment, extra stages, and of course – the fireworks.
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“Planning to bring in new details and amplify the experience on the Fourth of July with a bigger firework show. They’re going to have drones for the first time, amazing talent,” said Kate Fox, Executive Director at the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism.
This year’s spectacular is being hosted by actress Jane Lynch, and will feature performances by country star Lainey Wilson, Chance the Rapper, Trombone Shorty, and Broadway star Megan Hilty.
“We’re going to have remarkable artists that represent the vast diversity and breadth of American music,” Smith said.
The Boston Pops have been performing on the Esplanade for the Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular for 52 years, and organizers said this year’s show will highlight the history of Massachusetts.
“The history of the Pops is so closely tied to the Massachusetts story on the Fourth of July,” Fox said.
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The fireworks show will begin at 9:15 p.m., and will be set to live music from the Pops.
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When Americans think of the beverage that fueled the American Revolution, they usually picture black tea — but it turns out that green tea was just as popular.
The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea, Bruce Richardson, the Kentucky-based founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas, told Fox News Digital.
British subjects “were as likely to be drinking green tea as black tea, whether you were in Jane Austen [era] England … or you were in colonial Boston,” he added.
“There were five teas, all from China, because that was the only country that was exporting tea,” Richardson said. “And of those five different teas, two of them were green and three of them were black.”
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Richardson, a tea historian who works as the tea master at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, said the five types of tea dumped into Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act of 1773 included three black varieties — Bohea, Souchong and Congou — as well as the green teas Hyson and Singlo.
Bohea, the most common and least expensive black tea of the era, was often made from older tea leaves harvested after the highest-quality leaves of the season had already been picked.
Most of the tea dumped into Boston Harbor was Bohea, Richardson said — and it was so ubiquitous that he compared it to the way Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues today.
The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea, Bruce Richardson, the Kentucky-based founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas said. Getty Images
“It was so common that often teapots at the time, or some that I’ve seen, would say Bohea on the side of the teapot,” he said. “If they wanted tea, they’d say, ‘I’ll have a cup of Bohea.’ It was that common.”
Not only did colonial Americans distinguish between green and black tea, they even stored them differently.
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“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government.”
“The well-to-do people would have a tea caddy – a wooden, beautifully made tea caddy to store their tea in,” he said.
“It was kept under lock and key. And in that tea caddy, [there] would be two compartments, one for green tea and one for black tea.”
There were five teas, all from China, because that was the only country that was exporting tea, and green and black teas were very popular! Kristina Blokhin – stock.adobe.com
Merchants often favored black tea because it held up better during the long voyage from China to Europe and onward to the American colonies, Richardson said.
“The green tea was what China had always drunk,” he said.
“And so they were exporting that as well, but they found that the black tea actually made the voyage better than the green teas.”
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Even after many colonists swore off British tea, they kept the ritual of drinking it — or at least a close substitute.
Many patriots brewed so-called “Liberty Teas” made from ingredients such as dried apples, blueberries, chamomile and herbs grown in their gardens.
“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government,” Richardson said.
