The Vancouver Goldeneyes made history Friday night, and they did it in storybook fashion.

Goldeneyes forward Abby Boreen scored the game-winning goal at 1:36 of overtime, capping off their inaugural home game against the Seattle Torrent with a thrilling 4-3 victory. In a game where Vancouver trailed Seattle three different times, the Goldeneyes kept coming back and made their lead count.

In dropping the puck on the season, the Goldeneyes became the first pro hockey team to play in the Pacific Coliseum since the Canucks left for GM Place in 1995. The announced sellout attendance of 14,958 arrived early and made their presence known throughout the night, especially after Boreen’s winner and Sarah Nurse’s first period goal, the first in franchise history.

The lines for the team store snaked around a ramp to the bowels of the arena, and the lines for concessions between intermissions created a concourse that was almost as jam-packed as Rogers Arena’s. Almost.

For Nurse, the emotions rivalled any game in her career thus far.

“I’ve played a lot of hockey games, a lot of really big hockey games, and I’ve never felt the emotion, and I’ve never felt emotional like I have in that first 20 minutes of the game,” Nurse told reporters after the game. “It felt like something different was in the air.”

“I have nothing but thanks and gratitude for this whole organization and the league for really placing us in a pretty special place.”

As household names were being born on the ice, a number of their counterparts from across the city were in the crowd cheering them on. Legendary Canadian soccer captain Christine Sinclair was on hand to drop the ceremonial puck between Vancouver’s newly minted captain Ashton Bell and Torrent captain Hilary Knight. Members of the Canucks, including Thatcher Demko, Nils Hoglander, and Teddy Blueger, were watching from a private suite, with Aatu Räty even bringing a sign for fellow Finn Michelle Karvinen.

The Goldeneyes had their work cut out for them, getting goals from across their lineup. Gabby Rosenthal found the back of the net with a perfect snap shot to tie the game at two apiece early in the third.

After Seattle regained their lead midway through the final frame, defender Claire Thompson knocked in a loose puck right as Vancouver had pulled goalie Emerance Maschmeyer for the empty net.

Goldeneyes head coach Brian Idalski said that despite the team not always looking as crisp or structured as they’d like, they could easily chalk it up to being their first real game. And when push came to shove, the message to the players was simple.

“There was no reason to panic,” Idalski said. “Some of the things that went wrong were things that we can easily clean up and was kind of the first game not being as structured and as disciplined managing pucks as well as we would like.”

“But overall, it doesn’t take people long to see that we can skate, we can get after people in transition. And so there is no reason to feel in any way, shape, or form that we were out of that.”

Maschmeyer’s play was particularly key to the victory, fending off 24 of 27 Torrent shots and keeping her team alive for big stretches of the hockey game. For her head coach, she was a cornerstone.

“Goaltender is one of those positions where the team kind of feeds off of it like a quarterback or a starting pitcher. When they’re confident, they’re playing well, everybody knows it,” Idalski said. And so she gave us that tonight. And that’s why she is who she is.”

The Goldeneyes will hit the road for the next three games, starting with a tilt in Ottawa against the Charge on November 26.