US women back in gold medal game

But don’t go berserk quite yet.

The U.S. won the inaugural women’s hockey event in 1998.

You may have heard that Team USA hasn’t exactly been rocking the Olympic medal count.

In the kind of offensive burst US coach Robb Stauber has been waiting for, the Americans, silver medalists in Sochi and Vancouver, converted on three of six powerplays. But Norway’s up by like seven touchdowns in the third quarter.

The gold medal match is the game these two have been looking forward to since Canada rallied from a two-goal deficit and beat the Americans in overtime in Sochi four years ago.

The Lamoureuxs and Marvin have been on the last two silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic teams that lost to Canada in the finals in heartbreaking fashion.

But don’t panic quite yet.

On a day when International Ice Hockey Federation President Rene Fasel announced the Olympic tournament at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games would expand from eight to 10 teams, Canada and US continued to show they remain a class apart. Yes, the US dominated puck possession and again outshot its opponent by more than a 2-1 margin, 38-14.

Since women’s hockey made its Olympic debut in 1998, Canada and the US have met in every final except 2006 when the Americans were upset by Sweden in the semifinal. Just before the two-man advantage expired, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson lit the lamp to stretch USA’s lead to three, and 34 seconds after that, Hilary Knight found twine to truly bury Finland. “You had to have a gold-medal mentality today”, says US coach Robb Stauber. “I don’t care who you are, you have to defend that, and that’s a tough thing to defend if you have that mentality and we’re going to go to the net hard”.

“We stayed pretty calm and just focused on some details”, the veteran forward added.

The Americans are 7-0 against Finland in the Olympics and have won 22 games in worldwide competition with one overtime loss and one tie.

While the Americans fell to the Canadians in their first meeting at these Olympics, Team USA carried the play for much of that game. The Canadians will be trying to win their fifth straight Olympic gold. Canada have won all four since.

“This is a testament to how strong ice dancing is”, Hubbell said.

The two powerhouses in the women’s ice hockey have been trading world and Olympic titles since the 1990s.

“We play the top women’s championship with 10 teams so we extended already our world championship”. The Sochi defeat is still bitter.

That victory jumpstarted Canada to a flawless 3-0-0 record in Group A during the preliminary round and a bye into the semis.

“That’s certainly out of our control”, Duggan said.

Canada is the four-time Olympic champion and has won the past five games against the U.S. The Canadians figure a hard-fought game is likely. Speedskating, for example, has been a bust. Marvin fired the puck past Finnish goalie Noora Raty on the blocker side to make it 1-0.

“On one hand it’s like any other hockey tournament”.

In analyzing video of their preliminary games, the coaching staff noticed teams collapsing their defense to prevent prime scoring chances.

Women’s hockey doesn’t allow checking like the sport familiar to NHL fans. “Life, our teammates, family, country”. Let’s Do It For Those Suffering American Fans!

“We’re confident. We’ll stick with what has gotten us success the last three years”, U.S. forward Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson said.

Coach Robb Stauber is confident. “At the of the day, we have very proud players”, he says. “There’s nothing we’d love more than to deliver what they’re pulling for”.