The regular season of North American’s professional women’s hockey season is finally here!

NWHL

It’s opening weekend on the NWHL’s fourth season.

Saturday Oct. 6

• Metropolitan Riveters at Minnesota Whitecaps (4 p.m. Central) - Twitter Game of the Week/

On Thursday, the league announced the first NWHL game for the Whitecaps was sold out. Sunday’s game had an extremely limited amount of tickets as well. TRIA is going to be rocking. This will be an extremely fun and interesting game, a great introduction to what the NWHL has to offer, the natural first game of the season.

I’ll be watching for who gets the start in net for the Whitecaps. Who do you pick if you’re the Whitecaps co-coaches Ronda (Curtin) Engelhardt and Jack Brodt: Amanda Levielle, Sydney Rossman, or Julie Friend? The Riveters will be without Miye D’Oench as she’s working on Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath campaign in Kentucky.

This is the Twitter Game of the Week, so go to the NWHL’s Twitter account to find a live stream of the game.

Sunday Oct. 7

• Riveters at Whitecaps (2 p.m. Central) - YouTube/

Sunday’s game will be the first chance to see how both teams decide to play these back-to-back situations. Will see a change in net even after a goaltender turns in a solid performance? Perhaps some fresh legs plugged into the lineup? We’ll soon find out.

• Buffalo Beauts at Connecticut Whale (3 p.m. Eastern) - YouTube/

The Beauts and Whale open their seasons in Connecticut on Sunday. The Whale signed Finnish goaltender Meeri Räisänen on Oct. 1, but it’s unknown if she’ll make it to the US for the game. If she does, I’d expect to see our first big goalie showdown of the season. Räisänen is the backup on Finland’s National Team, but that’s only because it’s Noora Räty in front of her. Räisänen is the real deal. The Beauts could flip a coin for who they start with two other National Team goalies to choose from: Canadian Shannan Szabaods and American Nicole Hensley. If Räisänen isn’t available, Sam Walther could have her first chance to prove herself in a regular season game against a stacked Beauts team.

The game will be streamed on the NWHL’s YouTube.

CWHL

The CWHL doesn’t start until the 13th. Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving so Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

Here’s one thing to watch for, though if you blink you may miss it...

So @LesCanadiennes had Poulin, Knight, Daoust, Emard and Ambrose on the same power play unit. Took them less than 20 seconds to score. Just saying.

— Jared Book (@jaredbook) October 4, 2018