The First Lamp Lit

In my following all things women's hockey, I have made several commitments to ensuring that the people who make the game so great get their deserved kudos. One of those players was long-time Mount Royal Cougars forward Anna Purschke who was an incredible player on the ice and better person off the ice. Purschke was one of the heart-and-soul players for the Cougars as they turned the corner from "former ACAC team" to "powerhouse Canada West team", and it pleased me to no end to hear that she was going to continue to play the game at the professional level in Sweden with the SDHL's Leksands IF club. Seeing her in the professional ranks alongside other Canada West alumnae seemed like a no-brainer considering how good she was at the Canadian university level.

That also meant that we'd be watching for milestones in her career as she embarked on the professional path, so it became imperative to keep an eye on Leksands' progress through this season. While I was already watching MoDo, SDE, and HV71 for their Canada West ties, having one more club to watch made it a little more fun as I kept an eye on Anna's progress.

If we jump back to an article I wrote on October 12, 2022, I had documented Anna's first point on an assist on Annika Fazokas's second-period power-play goal to make it 1-0 in an eventual 2-0 win over Linköpings HC. Coincidentally, it was Leksands' first win of the season and the first professional win for both Anna and head coach Jordan Colliton on their hockey journeys.

I don't know what it is when it comes to Anna Purschke facing off against Linköpings HC, but October 23 saw the two teams in actions once more and this is where Anna picked up another first in her professional hockey career early in the third period!

I said it often when broadcasting Canada West games, but players who want to score goals need to find ways to get to the front of the net. Anna did that after winning the face-off and battling through a defender to get inside position where she got a rebound chance before she buried Noemi Rhymer's rebound past Ebba Svensson Träff to make it 3-2 for Leksands IF! That's goal #1 in her career!

If you're wondering, Anna now has three points on the season, and all three points have come against Linköpings HC as she also picked up an assist on Leksands' fourth goal on October 23 in what would be a 5-4 overtime loss. If I'm Leksands, I'm asking the SDHL for more games against Linkopings HC because it seems Anna has their number! They will play again on November 20 at home in Tegera Arena, so we'll see if Anna can continue her personal points streak going against team from southern Sweden!

As a side note, you may be asking why I'm writing about this on November 5 rather than two weeks ago when it happened. If you must know, the SDHL's revamped website is a tire fire with both video missing and video that's simply not embeddable. I have no idea what the SDHL is thinking in making it impossible to find highlights, but I spent the last two weeks trying to come up with a solution for this because it's downright maddening when you want to highlight someone or something as I did above.

The good news? I have a solution! I cracked the code on the SDHL website to figure out how to download and edit video once more, so expect more highlights from Canada West alumnae in the SDHL now! If the SDHL puts video up involving any other Canada West alumnae with a major milestone moment, it can and will be added here!

If you're looking for a way to watch Anna play with Leksands IF, there's a rumour that the SDHL game between Djurgårdens IF and Leksands IF will be aired live on OnHockey.tv this Sunday at 9:30am CT. Obviously, make adjustments based on your own time zone, but I'd expect a pile of people to tune in if OnHockey has the game. Look for the SDHL heading on the left side and catch the action! And, as a word of warning, you're gonna have to deal with the ads on that site. I can't stop that.

Congratulations to Anna Purschke on her first professional goal! I'm betting that won't be the only one we see this season, so expect to see a few more highlights that feature Anna right here on HBIC!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!