A near last-minute addition to the 2016 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic will feature the first Outdoor Women’s Classic. Presented by Scotiabank, a condensed exhibition will take place between the women’s teams that are based in the same two cities that are participating in the Winter Classic Boston and Montreal.
The Boston Pride of the four-team National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) is in it’s inaugural season. They are currently sporting a 7-3-0-0 record. Their 14 points has them in second place behind the Connecticut Whale by two points. Their opponent will be Les Canadiennes of the five-team Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL). Like the Pride, Les Canadiennes have played 10 games but have a 8-0-0-0-0-2 record.
Les Canadiennes features four Olympians- American Julie Chu and Canadians Charline Labonte, Caroline Ouellette, Lauriane Rougeau. The Pride will carry a depleted roster into the game because many of their top stars (Hilary Knight, Brianna Decker, Jordan Smelker, Gigi Marvin, Kacey Bellamy, Zoe Hickel, Alyssa Gagliardi, Kelsie Fralick and Amanda Pelkey) are at the Winter Training Camp with Team USA in Blaine, Minn. and were not released for the game.
The game will take place Thursday, Dec. 31, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. ET, just prior to the 2016 NHL Winter Classic Alumni Game presented by Molson Canadian that has been hyped as the best alumni game since the Detroit-Toronto alumni games a few years back.
