VANCOUVER—Canada took its third consecutive gold medal in Olympic women’s hockey Thursday after shutting out the United States 2–0 in a hard fought game.
It was the matchup everyone knew would happen. While men’s hockey has strong teams from Europe, in the women’s game it is all about North America.
In these Olympics, the two teams have skated all over their competition. Neither team has given up more than one goal in a game and both have posted double-digit goal tallies.
Canada takes the footnote for biggest win over an opponent with an 18-goal shut out over Slovakia. Neither team had seen a challenge before today.
In some ways, the first period of the women’s game was the mirror of the men’s U.S.–Canada game except this time around the U.S. had the stronger offense and Canada the better goalie.
The U.S. spent a lot of time in Canada’s zone but didn’t manage to get anything past goalie Shannon Szabados.
Canada took the lead at 13:55 of the first period when Jennifer Botterill set up Marie-Philip Poulin who fired it past U.S. goaltender Jessica Vetter.
In an interview after the game, dejected U.S. captain Natalie Darwitz said hockey is a game of momentum and on this night the Canadians had it.
“We came out great the first 10 minutes and had a lot of energy going and generated two or three scoring opportunities, but I think after they scored their first goal, the momentum shifted there,” said Darwitz.
The U.S. did have their chances and had only one shot on goal fewer than Canada but none could find their way past Szabados.
In a five-on-three early in the second period she weathered an intense American onslaught to hold on to her shut out.
Canada scored its second goal with three minutes left in the first period when Poulin sent another one home, this time assisted by Erika Lawler. Both teams had a player in the penalty box at the time.
U.S attempts to score were as futile chants of “U-S-A” in the crowd. Every time the scattered American spectators started the chant it was drowned out by “Go Canada Go!”
It wasn’t until the silver medals were done being handed out to an obviously disappointed American team that the Canadians let the chant survive and even joined in.
Both teams played a physical game but the U.S. had the better forecheck, especially when the Canadians insisted on passing in their zone.
While bronze medal-winning Finland looked happy with their third place finish in the medal ceremony that followed the game, the U.S. team dispersed without pausing for a team picture and only a scattered few that hadn’t already left lined up to shake hands with the Finns.
Darwitz summed up the mood in a post-game interview.
“We’re not smiling, we’re not jumping up and down. It is what it is, we have a silver around our neck and right now we can’t do anything about it.”
“Canada’s got gold and we got silver and all you can do is wait for four more years to get another crack, that’s what it is right now.”
Canadian forward and MVP Meghan Agosta said it was an honor to take gold on Canadian soil and that the team came ready for a tough battle.
“We had no doubt in our minds that if we went out there and played Canadian hockey, that we’d come out successful,” she said.
The rivalry between the two teams has stewed since women’s hockey was first included in the games in 1998.
The Rivalry
Canada took gold at the last two Olympic Games, once against the U.S., once against Sweden. The U.S. took gold from Canada in Japan at the Nagano games in 1998.
Canada took gold from the U.S. in nine of the twelve world championships between 1990 and 2009.
In an interview before the games officially began Darwitz said emotions have run high between the two teams.
“It’s an intense competitive rivalry. They’ll do whatever they can to stop us and we’ll do the same thing.”
“It feels really good when you win against them and it feels like someone’s ripping apart at you when you lose against them. That’s why we play the game, for those kinds of emotions, to face competitors that bring out the best in each other.”
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