Champions! Minnesota’s PWHL Team Wins League’s First-Ever Championship

How fitting that the State of Hockey should be the home of the first-ever PWHL champion.

Minnesota's Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) team skated to a victory on Wednesday night in a decisive final game of a 5-game series to decide the winner of the inaugural season of the newly-formed league.

PWHL Minnesota, competing with PWHL Boston, entered Wednesday night's Game 5 matchup looking to rebound after losing in a tight 1-0 overtime Game 4 on Sunday. The series saw Boston win Game 1, Minnesota claiming Game 2 and Game 3, and Boston evening the series in Minnesota before it headed back to Boston for the final game in the championship.

PWHL Minnesota came out strong in Wednesday night's game, with Liz Schepers scoring a second-period goal and former UMD Bulldog Michela Cava extending the lead to 2-0 in the third period. Kendall Coyne Schofield put the final nail in the coffin with an empty-net goal late in the third period to skate to a 3-0 victory to claim the first-ever Walter Cup.

PWHL Minnesota's goalie provided the shutout, going 17-for-17 on blocking Boston's shots. Meanwhile, Minnesota peppered the Boston goalie with a total of 43 shots before she was pulled to go empty-net to try to stage a comeback.

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While Minnesota sports fans lament the bad season the Wild had, agonize over the Timberwolves stumbling to 1-3 start in the Western Conference Finals and the up-and-down start the Twins are having, this is something fun to rally around.

PWHL Minnesota also happens to feature some local talent once seen on the ice in Duluth. As pointed out by the UMD Women's Hockey Facebook page, a handful of the team's players are former UMD Bulldogs. How cool is that?

In all, how fitting is it that the State of Hockey is the home of the team to win the first-ever league championship for this new women's hockey league? Absolutely fantastic. Nice work PWHL Minnesota!