Time for some woho propaganda are you ready?
Oh dang, I'm hockey-brained again. I'm one of like 12 queers who walked away from Heated Rivalry disappointed that there wasn't more hockey on screen...
my official erotic gay sports media creator opinion: the gay hockey show doesn’t have enough hockey in it
— Robert Yang (@radiatoryang.bsky.social) 2026-01-02T21:50:17.367Z
I am not alone! There are dozens of us! Dozens!!
My solution? Getting back into women's hockey. Back in the day, Leif and I used to follow the Montréal Stars before that league folded. We used to have to go see the games in person (uphill, in a snowstorm, both ways) because woho (women's hockey) never had any kind of regular broadcasting deals.
So it's kind of cool that the PWHL has broadcasting deals! Unimaginable to younger me, who was floored to discover woho even existed for players in Canada after they left their university sports' programmes. (Though, I do wish getting the games in Canada was easier than signing up for like 6 different 30 CAD a month services — what the hell!?!?)
Because I posted about hockey in different ways on bsky, mastodon and Instagram, I thought it would be fun to collect all those various posts here to capture what it was like to watch the Montréal Victoire v NYC Sirens game at 2PM on 2 January 2026.
The feed of woho propaganda, curated in chronological order (mostly?) & with commentary:
Honestly my take is that her energy works in MTL very well 🤣
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T18:50:34.379Z
Note it down in your calendars: t'was at 13h50 on January 2 2026 that my Abby Roque obsession began.
“And look how Abby Roque welcomes her former teammates” slams into the boards. They would be insulted with less. #pwhl #nysirens
— Elisabeth Bayer (@ejbayer.bsky.social) 2026-01-02T18:27:20.980Z
One of my favourite bsky posts about the game (for context: Abby Roque was traded from the Sirens to the Victoire).
According to the RDS commentators the NYC team has the hardest time filling the stands which explains why the music choices are all wild, apparently today the music choices are all from Broadway which explains why Phantom of the Opera was playing earlier #pwhl #weewoos
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T18:53:27.247Z
I'm not a musical theatre fan in general so this was bewildering to me.
The first two goals from the Victoire were pretty damn glorious. The @victoire_lphf account on Instagram is worth following for the great photos alone.
In case you live under a rock (no judgement from me, I spend most of my time there tbqh), the first two goals are certifiable Wife Goals because the first was by sniper Laura Stacey and the second was from Captain Clutch a.k.a. MPP a.k.a. Marie-Philip Poulin. Yes, the two of them are married, their love story is so effing romantic I can't even.
WIFE GOAL #PWHL #VictoirePWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T19:18:53.530Z
Kaltounková is playing beautifully as much as it fucking kills me to say it #PWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T19:59:07.925Z
Kaltounková plays for the Sirens — she's incredible on the ice, it was honestly tough to watch from the Victoire POV.
FUCK #PWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T20:25:39.969Z
Basically it was towards the end of the second period and into the third that I was starting to really worry about the Victoire. They were hammering the Sirens — but Osborne (Siren's Goalie) was just effortlessly blocking 40+ shots and showing no signs of getting tired. By the point the Victoire had an empty net I felt like the writing was on the wall, but at no point did the Victoire give up, which made the game very exciting until the last possible second.
2 BUTS EN 8 MINUTES ON Y CROIT?!?! #PWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T20:26:29.101Z
In the last 8 minutes we had to catch up on 2 goals to break even, but stranger things have happened.
ON Y CROIT! ON Y CROIT!!!! #PWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T20:28:59.360Z
The French coming out is a sign my brain was operating at its most basic level.
ON Y CROIT FUCK YEAH ABBY #PWHL
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T20:47:54.419Z
My Abby obsession continues as she made an incredible 3rd goal for the game.
If that stick had not been too high it would have been a thing of beauty
— Gersande La Flèche (@gersande.com) 2026-01-02T20:34:12.671Z
The MPP goal that wasn't — the review found MPP's stick was too high.
But it wasn't meant to be — the Sirens kept their 4-3 lead over the Victoire until the bitter end. Props to the Sirens social media team, the "Oui Woo" chirp on their Instagram was extremely cute, the Franglais is approved.
I'm going to try and comment (on social media & blog posts somewhat like this one) as many of the Victoire games as I can throughout January '26. If there is interest, I will also perhaps do something for the Olympics too. I've got all this winter sport stuff in my brain, I should probably write about it more.
You can find me on bsky @gersande.com, on mastodon @gersande@silvan.cloud, and of course on instagram — if you follow me somewhere specifically because you want to see woho or ski stuff please ping me about it, it's good to know where or how people are tuning in from.
Also, if you've never followed hockey before OR you know nothing about woho, check out this extremely cute and completely excellent graphic that someone in Frankie DLC's Out of Your League Discord shared with me. (If anyone recognizes the creator of this zine please shoot me a message and let me know so I can credit this appropriately!)
All right, I think that's about it for 2026's first PWHL game. Catch you next time!
