Gotham-Spirit record night impacted by smoke: ‘We shouldn’t be playing the game’

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Washington Spirit and United States national team star Trinity Rodman wasn’t a fan of the hydration breaks every 15 minutes in her team’s 1-0 loss to Gotham FC Wednesday night.

“Air quality was rough,” Rodman said after the game. “Not to make excuses at all, but I think on both sides we were all like, ‘another break, another break, another break.’”

While she said she was overjoyed to be part of selling out Citi Field to set a new record attendance for a women’s sporting event in New York, Rodman, along with other players, also had to manage the orange haze and smoke-filled sky.

The NWSL closely monitored the 2025 NWSL championship rematch between the Spirit and Gotham FC throughout Wednesday, leading up to its 8 p.m. ET kickoff, due to poor air quality from smoke stemming from wildfires in Canada and the Great Lakes and extreme heat in the New York area.

Sunday’s men’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., which is 22 miles from Citi Field. However, as of Thursday morning, the air quality in the area is forecast to improve throughout the weekend.

Gotham beat Washington last November to win the 2025 NWSL crown. Wednesday’s regular-season rematch was a one-off at the New York Mets’ home, with 42,175 fans in attendance. That number surpassed the mark previously set by Coco Gauff’s win in the 2024 U.S. Open final.

The record crowd got to watch Rose Lavelle convert a left-footed chip in the 37th minute that secured a Gotham win. Those fans were also subjected to the same “unhealthy” air quality as the players in a game that featured two intermissions per half.

“If we have to have a hydration break every 15 minutes, then we shouldn’t be playing the game, and that’s my opinion,” Rodman said. “But at the end of the day, there’s 40,000 people. It’s a whole event, so it’s really tough. It’s just a really hard situation for everyone to work around.”

Hundreds of wildfires burning across northwestern Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba, as well as over a dozen more in Minnesota, have deposited a blanket of smoke across the Upper Midwest and Northeast, with officials issuing an air quality health advisory for the entire state of New York on Wednesday “due to the statewide impact of smoke from wildfires in Canada.”

The smoke came with scorching conditions in New York on Wednesday, with temperatures reaching just under 100 degrees Fahrenheit and prompting an extreme heat warning.

An NWSL procedural clause states that weather conditions rendering a match dangerous or impractical for players, participants, or fans can result in the delay, postponement or cancellation of a game.

Should the air quality index (AQI) sit between 100 and 150, it triggers one hydration break per half. If the AQI reads between 150 and 180, two breaks per half become mandatory. Above 180 is when delays and cancellations come into effect. Any AQI above 151 is considered “unhealthy” by the U.S. government.

At kickoff, the AQI reading was 171.

Rodman appeared to need an oxygen mask during one of the breaks, and the stoppages frustrated the players’ rhythm as the smoke hung over the match.

“I think if it were different circumstances, maybe the game would have been pushed,” Spirit defender Tara Rudd said postgame. “But because there’s so many people here that we played, so I don’t know. I think, I mean, it’s not an excuse, but the water breaks, even disrupting the game, two water breaks a half is insane.”

Hydration breaks have been a much-debated topic at the ongoing World Cup, being played in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Due to warmer North American summer temperatures, this is the first World Cup to feature one hydration break per half.

“Can I be honest? I don’t like them,” Spirit head coach Adrian Gonzalez said bluntly of hydration breaks after the game.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Gotham FC, Washington Spirit, NWSL

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