The Toronto Furies faced the Markham Thunder in the last game of the CWHL season, with everything on the line for the Furies. It was a true must-win game. Win it, and they were in the playoffs; lose, and they were done, their season over. This wasn’t their first must-win game, either.
The Furies had turned what looked like a not-quite-good-enough season into a playoff run in mid-February, when they beat Markham twice in a row on the 16th and 17th. The Shenzhen Rays, home to the game-stealing Noora Räty, had suddenly stopped winning all the time, and the door had opened a crack.