Minnesota
PWHL Minnesota rides Grace Zumwinkle's hat trick, Maddie Rooney's 24 saves to shutout victory in front of record-setting 13,316 fans
The Professional Women’s Hockey League is less than a week into its first season, but that was enough to lead Stan Kasten to a conclusion. A member of the league’s founding board, Kasten had traveled to multiple games since Monday’s opener, witnessing the sold-out arenas and jubilant fans.
When he came to Minnesota on Saturday, he made a declaration. “What we proved this week,” Kasten said, “is that women’s hockey works.”
In its home opener, Minnesota put an exclamation point on Kasten’s verdict. A crowd announced at 13,316, the largest ever to attend a women’s professional hockey game, turned out at Xcel Energy Center to watch Minnesota defeat Montreal 3-0. The attendance smashed the previous record of 8,318, set Tuesday when Montreal played at Ottawa.
Grace Zumwinkle, the former Gophers star from Excelsior, scored the first home-ice goal in franchise history at 17 minutes, 21 seconds of the first period. She finished with a hat trick, adding a pair of goals in the third period. At 1:47, her shot from the center point hit a stick and bounced past Montreal goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens, and she added an empty-net goal at 17:13.
Minnesota goaltender Maddie Rooney, an Andover native who played at Minnesota Duluth, made 24 saves in a rock-steady performance to earn the shutout. Montreal outshot Minnesota 24-22 but went 0-for-3 on the power play. Minnesota also failed to score with the advantage, going 0-for-4.
The victory gave Minnesota another historic distinction. It became the first PWHL team to win a home game, after the visiting teams won the first five games in league history.
Saturday’s crowd wasn’t just large. It was joyous and loud, creating a celebratory atmosphere for the PWHL’s debut in the state.
Minnesota’s early marketing efforts have focused on the grass roots of the game, as the team worked to attract young hockey players and their families. That demographic turned out in force Saturday, in numbers the franchise didn’t anticipate earlier this week.
The team hoped to fill Xcel’s lower bowl. That was accomplished by Friday, so seats in the club level were opened for sale. Saturday morning, with tickets still in demand, the arena staff pulled the curtains from some upper-deck sections and made those seats available.
Xcel didn’t open the doors until 1:30. By 1 p.m., more than 100 people already were lining up in the lobby, waiting to get in.
A lucky few wore Minnesota jerseys. Others improvised with sweatshirts or T-shirts in the team’s purple and white colors. During warmups, kids gathered along the glass with signs that declared, “Making Herstory” and “We Play Like Girls. Try To Keep Up.”
Minnesota forward Sophia Kunin, a Wayzata native, predicted the day would be “super exciting and emotional.” Though she would be focused on the game, she wanted to make sure she saw the larger picture, too.
“You soak in all the moments up until that puck drop,” Kunin said. “But once we line up for that first shot, it’s hockey mode. It’s time to give a good show for all the fans, and to do what we came here for.”
Montreal got the better chances early in the game, outshooting Minnesota 5-1 in the first seven minutes. But Minnesota’s offense—which was inconsistent during Wednesday’s 3-2 victory at Boston—began to find its footing as the first period progressed.
Zumwinkle, who scored the game-winner Wednesday, gave Minnesota the lead with 2:39 left before the first intermission. Susanna Tapani controlled the puck along the left boards and passed to Zumwinkle, who skated through the left circle. Her backhander hit Desbiens and caromed into the goal.
Minnesota’s attack was slowed by three penalties in the second period. That gave Rooney, who helped bring the U.S. the Olympic gold medal in 2018, a chance to shine.
On Montreal’s third power play, Rooney blocked a point-blank shot by Maureen Murphy. When Murphy got another chance from the bottom of the left circle, Rooney snared the puck out of the air.
Zumwinkle scored her second goal of the game early in the third. She fired the puck toward the net from just inside the blue line; as it sailed through the slot, it appeared to hit a stick and beat Desbiens.
Montreal pulled Desbiens with more than three minutes remaining, and Zumwinkle fired the puck down the ice for an empty-netter to complete the hat trick.
Most of the crowd had stayed, and many hurled their caps to the Xcel ice to salute Zumwinkle. They rose to their feet for the final seconds.
Though none of the PWHL teams have nicknames yet, it didn’t matter. The crowd chanted, “Minnesota! Minnesota!” before the team gathered at center ice for a stick salute.
A dangerous social media trend is circulating online, and Minnesota health experts are warning parents it involves allergy medication.
Doctors say the so-called Benadryl challenge involves teens taking large amounts of the medication and record themselves as the effects kick in.
“Our goal here at Children’s Minnesota is if a trend causes any sort of physical harm or mental harm to make sure that we’re taking care of our patients,” said Dr. Nita Gupta, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s Minnesota.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the trend first gained attention in 2020 when there were 184 reported cases tied to intentional misuse of the allergy medication. Cases continued to rise the years but dipped in 2024 and then more than doubled in 2025, reaching nearly 400 cases. Most of the cases involved teens ages 15 to 19.
Dr. Gupta believes the main draw is the hallucinogen aspect of it, but says there are so many other negative consequences that can happen.
Health experts say the allergy medication can become dangerous when taken in large doses. Symptoms can escalate quickly and may include agitation, blurred vision, seizures and in severe cases, death.
“The second the parent knows that their child consumed this is a reason to come in or at least call poison control, don’t even wait for the symptoms to start,” Dr. Gupta said.
Experts say the resurgence of this dangerous challenge shows how quickly trends can return, and they urge parents to talk to their children about what they are seeing online.
Dr. Gupta believes early conversations at home may help prevent serious injury.
The Minnesota Regional Poison Center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for anyone with questions. The organization’s phone number is 1-800-222-1222.
Trading LaMelo Ball to the Minnesota Timberwolves will make the Charlotte Hornets worse in 2026-27. There is no denying that.
Ball was the lone driver of Charlotte’s top-five offense, speeding the Hornets’ fast-paced attack up and down and all around the floor to create open looks for himself and his talented teammates. LaMelo’s Gastonia shooting range, unorthodox handles, eagle-eyed passing, and his ability to heat up in a moment’s notice just simply cannot be aggregated in the interim.
With Ball on the floor, Charlotte’s offensive rating jumped by 11.6 points per 100 possessions, good for the 99th percentile among guards in the NBA. Kon Knueppel’s three-point percentage increased by 10.3 points when he shared the floor with Ball, and Brandon Miller shot 20.5% better at the rim (an area where he struggles) with LaMelo helping create looks for him.
Everyone who plays alongside LaMelo Ball gets better — the proof is in any publicly available number you can find.
Charlotte’s historically efficient offense cratered when LaMelo hit the bench, and trading him now, no matter what they got in return, will immediately set back the Hornets’ push to become the premier NBA franchise they aspire to be.
But what if I told you this move does make some sense in the Hornet’s long-term team build? And that Charlotte is justified to sell-high on their All-NBA caliber point guard? I’m not sure I believe it, so I’m going to try and convince myself as I attempt to convince you.
Justifying Charlotte’s Decision to Trade LaMelo Ball
I can understand some trepidation about building the whole plane out of LaMelo Ball. He only played a total of 105 games in the three seasons prior to 2025-26, and until that becomes the exception, not the norm, it will always be dangerous to have him as the centerpiece of a franchise.
LaMelo Ball played 72 games in 2025-26, the second-highest number of his young NBA career. The Hornets were cautious about over-taxing their star creator, only playing him 28 minutes per game, a career-low, and crafting a roster that was built to ease LaMelo’s burden.
Last summer, Charlotte targeted Tre Mann (which looks bad in hindsight), Collin Sexton, and Spencer Dinwidde to provide supplementary ball handling and lower the league-high 37.1% usage rate Ball racked up in 2024-25. Championships are won on the margins, and if you have to allocate extra resources to your point guard room as a parachute for a player like LaMelo, there’s a chance you’re missing out on some impact on the fringes of your roster.
Also, the skill sets of Ball, Knueppel, and Miller are quite redundant. They are all perimeter-focused offensive options who struggle to score in the paint. Charlotte could believe that it was necessary to move one of them in an attempt to diversify their offensive attack, and due to Kon and Brandon’s contract situation and LaMelo’s long-term health outlook (which the Hornets would know better than anybody, by the way), they decided that the time to sell-high on Ball was now.
How high would the ceiling of a fully-formed, maxed-out contractually Ball, Knueppel, and Miller trio even be? A second round exit assuming everything goes right? By trading Ball now, adding a talented front court piece in Naz Reid, creating the largest trade exception in league history, and setting yourself up to be a real player in trade talks about any disgruntled superstar, Jeff Peterson just created a number of avenues to rebuild this team around its burgeoning stars.
Could the package have been more robust? Sure. But there’s no guarantee another team with more assets to spare than Minnesota would have even registered more than nominal interst in LaMelo Ball. The market is the market. Peterson said last summer that he’ll push the chips in when the time is right, and if nothing else, he just added a few more to his stash.
There is also a chance that the Timberwolves look radically different when these swaps and picks are ready to convey. Minnesota’s asset reserves are bone dry, starting center Rudy Gobert is on the back-nine of his NBA career, and the Western Conference has a couple of well-positioned juggernauts that the Wolves will have to navigate every year that they employ Anthony Edwards and Ball.
And what if Edwards becomes disillusioned with his standing in Minnesota and forces his way out before his five-year, $244M contract expires in 2028-29? Or what if he leaves that summer in free agency? The Hornets will have the opportunity to pick up the pieces and feast off of the wreckage in Minnesota in that nightmare scenario for the Timberwolves.
There has to be more bubbling underneath the surface for Charlotte to be willing to take the massive PR hit of trading LaMelo Ball just weeks after the franchise played some of the best basketball in the league for an extended period. There is an argument to be made that this deal says more about Charlotte’s lack of belief in the ceiling of a LaMelo-led team than anything else.
And there is merit to that.
Ball has played in four Play-In Tournament games and struggled mighitly in three of them. When the game slows down and becomes increasingly more physical, Ball has failed to hold up. The Hornets must be projecting that Ball’s postseason struggles will continue in Minnesota, capping the long-term ceiling of the Timberwolves.
This is a bet against a couple of things: LaMelo Ball’s long-term health, the viability of a back court duo of Ball and Edwards, and Minnestoa’s asset-poor state. I’m not sure if it’s a bet I would have been willing to make, but it is the one Jeff Peterson and the Hornets decided to.
And whether you like it or not, the dice have been thrown.
There is now more pressure than ever on the shoulders of Jeff Peterson. He somehow pulled off the rare feat of making his team worse in the short term while sending the expectations of his fanbase through the roof. There has to be more moves coming from Charlotte. There has to.
Which is why I’m calling on you to holster your torches and pitchforks for now. In a vacuum, this deal is a tough one to swallow. LaMelo Ball brought unquantifiable joy to the city of Charlotte and spearheaded a run that awoke the long dormant basketball-crazed city. Not only did his impact on winning supersede the narratives around him, his impact on the franchise’s bottom line did as well. The city loved LaMelo, and it is a shame that he was sent packing just as things were starting to percolate for the first time in his Hornets career.
However, if it is a part of a larger plan that reshapes the Hornets’ roster into a group that can compete at a high level in the NBA playoffs, then I will tip my cap to Peterson and his team. Winning does cure all at the end of the day, right?
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Minnesota leaders are sending photos that highlight the state’s landmarks and culture to the U.S. Capitol for a special time capsule.
The time capsule gives each state and territory delegation an opportunity to provide a snapshot of time in 2026 as America celebrates its 250th birthday.
Photos from all eight Minnesota congressional districts were sent to the Capitol.
They include Lake Superior, the State Fair, the loon, Prince’s Purple Rain and the National Eagle Center.
The capsule will be sealed inside the Capitol Visitor Center until America’s 500th birthday on July 4, 2276.
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