Canada Beats the United States for Olympic Gold in Women’s Hockey

Since Women’s Hockey was added to the Olympics in 1998, every Gold Medal has gone to either Canada 2002, ’06, ’10, ’14) or the United States (1998, 2018), and both countries have a medal of some sort in each of the games. So it was no surprise that the Gold Medal game in the Beijing 2022 Games would involve these two teams in a rivalry that not only is in the Olympics, but also in the World Championships.

Canadian superstar Marie-Philip Poulin scored two goals and assisted on the other as Canada got off to a 3-0 start and held on for a 3-2 victory. Poulin has scored the winning goal in the last three Canadian Gold Medal winning games. The United States won its fourth silver (the U.S. won the Bronze in 2006).

Many of the players on both sides played college hockey in the U.S. with or against each other. Poulin played for Boston University. The starting goalies for both teams played at the University of Wisconsin, as did Sarah Nurse, who scored the other Canadian goal, and Hilary Knight, who scored one of the U.S. goals. Five players on each team played for Wisconsin (the Badgers are coached by Mark Johnson, who played on the men’s 1980 Miracle on Ice team). There are eight players from the University of Minnesota who were on the U.S. squad, including Amanda Kessel, who scored the other U.S. goal. Kessel is from Madison, Wisconsin but opted to play college hockey in Minnesota. She is the brother of the Arizona Coyotes’ Phil Kessel. Six players on the U.S. team played for Boston area schools. Other U.S. schools with Canadian players include Ohio State, Princeton, and Minnesota-Duluth.

Here’s a link to some game highlights