Winning a championship is always sweet. Celebrating a championship in a sports-crazed city? Even better.
Ever since the Boston Pride earned their second consecutive Premier Hockey Federation championship with a 4-2 victory over the Connecticut Whale on March 28 in Wesley Chapel, Fla., it’s been party time.
Head coach Paul Mara, shortly after the team returned with the Isobel Cup, knew what was ahead. “Now it’s victory tour time again,” he said.
The Pride have been given the red carpet treatment by the Bruins and Red Sox. Players were celebrated at the Boston Marathon. Captain Jillian Dempsey was chosen by the Bruins to be the flag bearer before a playoff game at TD Garden. And the players and coaches have spent a day with the Isobel Cup.
“It’s been incredible,” said Dempsey, the only player to hoist the Isobel Cup three times. “We’ve been enjoying quite the victory tour. It’s really been quite the whirlwind. Winning championships is phenomenal, but especially when you do it in a city like Boston that’s so in love with sports.”
A fifth-grade teacher in her hometown of Winthrop, Mass., Dempsey was given a hero’s welcome from her students upon her return from Florida.
Congratulatory posters filled the hallways. Her students, the ones she talks to about setting goals and then reaching them, reveled in Dempsey, a Harvard University graduate, achieving her goal.
“It’s so fun to go back to that environment,” she said. “They love it. They were having so much fun for that day. I’m always talking about following their dreams. It’s that much better when you win it all.”
The Pride won the 2015-16 championship in the franchise’s inaugural season. They won again in 2021. But the 2022 championship was especially gratifying.
Boston lost its final five regular-season games, all in overtime. The Pride did not enter the playoffs as the favorite.
The Pride finished the regular season with 32 points, far behind Connecticut (47) and Toronto (46), and won only half of their 20 games.
But the Pride were not to be denied in Florida, as they refused to be distracted by bright sunshine and 80-degree weather. Boston was on a mission, no matter the weather outside. Pass the sunscreen? No. Pass the puck.
Former Boston College goaltending star Katie Burt, a Lynn, Mass., native, stopped 82 of 85 shots. Forward Taylor Wenczkowski (Rochester, N.H.) earned playoff MVP honors after scoring a goal in all three playoff wins.
Defender Kali Flanagan led her team with five points in the postseason, one point ahead of forwards Mary Parker (Milton, Mass.) and Christina Putigna.
Dempsey, of course, did her part, scoring a key goal in the championship win over Connecticut and displaying the type of leadership that is her calling card.
The Pride, trailing 2-1 entering the third period, stunned the Whale with three goals, the final one into an empty net.
“Our third period was one for the ages,” Mara said.
Making Boston’s championship all the more impressive is the fact that Connecticut had won the final three meetings of the regular season.
In 2020, the Pride were close to winning their third straight championship. The team was 23-1 when the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the COVID-19 outbreak
Two years later, the Pride have been hearing cheers since their return to Massachusetts.
The victory tour began March 31 when the Bruins honored them during an 8-1 victory over New Jersey. The Bruins presented the players with jerseys. Their names were embroidered on the back. Their accomplishment was announced to the crowd and they were interviewed following the second period on NESN.
“They’ve been really great in recognizing us,” Dempsey said.
On April 18, Dempsey and Parker served as grand marshals of the Boston Marathon. The pair were driven in front of the first athletes and basked in the applause of tens of thousands of spectators, from Hopkinton to Boston. Dempsey and Parker wore ear-to-ear smiles the entire 26.2 miles.
“To be honest I wasn’t that familiar with what that meant, Dempsey said of serving as grand marshal. “I practically had chills the whole time. It was all so impressive. The crowd was incredible.”
At the finish line, Dempsey and Parker were joined by their teammates.
“It was very, very uplifting,” Dempsey said. “The BAA (Boston Athletic Association) was very welcoming to us.”
The victory tour continued the next night at Fenway Park when the team was honored on the field before a Red Sox game. As the others made a semi-circle around the mound, Dempsey and Burt threw ceremonial first pitches.
Her heart pounding, Dempsey threw a strike.
“I felt like it went by so quickly,” she said, “but I got a strike. It caught the outside corner.”
Like the Bruins, the Red Sox had jerseys made up with the names of the players on the backs. The Pride were good-luck charms for the Red Sox as well, as Boston nipped Toronto, 2-1, that night.
Dempsey made a return to TD Garden on May 8. She was chosen to serve as the flag bearer who gets the crowd fired up before a Bruins playoff game. That’s an honor that has gone to celebrities and big-time athletes. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is among those who have performed the duty.
“It was really special,” she said. “It was definitely incredible to be asked and then to be able to wave the flag and feel the energy from the building.”
Dempsey was proud to wave the flag, and relieved when the Bruins went out and skated past Carolina, 5-2, to win Game 4 of their heated first-round playoff series.
The Pride experienced similar star treatment last year after they beat the Minnesota Whitecaps for the National Women’s Hockey League championship before the league was renamed the Premier Hockey Federation.
Except for one key difference. This spring’s celebrations have included all of the Pride players. With society in a different place last spring because of the pandemic, the number of Pride players able to gather was limited.
Next up on the victory tour will be a ring celebration, likely to be held in Boston.
Basking in the applause and being celebrated at Bruins and Red Sox games, as well as at the world’s most famous marathon, make the Pride hungry to win another title.
A three-peat?
On a recent afternoon, after teaching all day, Dempsey jumped in her car and drove nearly an hour, fighting traffic, to arrive at a gym in Woburn.
To win a championship, to earn a victory tour, a price has to be paid.
Training for the 2022-23 season has begun.
