The fog on the glass belonged to 9-year-old Alice Commans.
Her hands, body length apart, held up a hand-drawn poster that read, “Let’s go Sirens!” Each corner contained a message for four of her favorite players, including Sarah Fillier, Alex Carpenter, Ella Shelton and Chloe Aurard.
When the final horn sounded on the Sirens’ 4-2 win against the Toronto Sceptres and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” started to play, Commans had a few new friends by her side.
Maybe they’ll be teammates one day.
“It’s incredible that we have this league,” said Commans, who started playing hockey four years ago. “It’s so fun. It’s like you get to see girls play and then little girls like me get to dream about it.”
The Sirens made their season debut Wednesday at Prudential Center, their permanent home for this season and beyond.
For the players, it was an exciting and welcome change from last season, when New York played its home games at three different arenas.
Goaltender Corinne Schroeder said Wednesday night “certainly” felt like a home game, where the Sirens had home-ice advantage.
“It was really nice to be able to drive ourselves to this game rather than have to stay in hotels,” Schroeder said. “I think it helps us feel like we’re at home, we’re not on a specific schedule, we can create our own home game-day schedule.”
The night started with Newark mayor Ras Baraka cranking the turquoise horn to sound the siren.
The first period was very much back and forth between New York and Toronto, though neither team scored.
During the first intermission, Adam LeVine, a new Sirens fan, said she was hoping to see more action — goal scoring — moving forward.
In the second period, the Sirens delivered — not once, but four times, sending the home crowd into a frenzy.
It was the usual suspects who set up New York’s first goal of the night.
Fillier passed the puck to Carpenter, who set up Noora Tulus for her first goal of the season.
Fans jumped onto their feet and raised their fists in the air as Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” blared from the arena speakers.
High-fives and fist bumps were exchanged.
A chorus of “wee-woo” chants echoed from one section to another.
Fans would follow a similar ritual three more times when Emmy Fecteau, Micah Zandee-Hart and Jaime Bourbonnais each scored their first goals of the season to give the Sirens a 4-0 lead by the end of the second period.
While the 2,700 fans scattered around Prudential Center’s lower bowl were mostly lively, section 12, 13 and 14 was the rowdiest bunch.
Aubrey Dearen, of Manhattan, sat amongst the chaos in section 13.
She and her friend, Jenna Travis, wore matching Sirens hard hats that they made from a Monster Inc. costume from Spirit Halloween.
The red beacon light on the top of each of their heads lit up when the Sirens scored.
Dearen and Travis started following New York last season, though neither knew much about hockey.
They attended a few games and Dearen said she had to Google to know how many periods were played.
Their passion for the Sirens came from their love of women’s sports.
“[We] wanted to support women’s sports and show there is a market for this,” Dearen, 26, said. “We do want to see it. We’re just as good as men … it’s for us.”
Eric Tao, of Bergen County, is a proud father of two girls hockey players and sat a few rows behind Dearen and Travis.
“I grew up wanting to play for the Leafs,” said Tao, who’s originally from Toronto. “The fact that we have a women’s league that they can aspire to, it means the world to me. Because all boys grow up going, ‘I want to play in the NHL.’ But the girl couldn’t — until now. They go, ‘I want to play in the PWHL.’ They say it all the time. I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’”
The Sirens are hoping to build off Wednesday’s momentum as the season continues on. It’ll take time for them to establish a place within New York’s saturated sports market.
But if there’s one thing all New Yorkers can get behind, it’s a winning team and the Sirens have their sights set on doing more of that this season.
