VANCOUVER – The Canadian women are clearly on a mission in the last real test before the 2010 Olympics. And the situation is strikingly similar to what happened in Turin, Italy four years ago.
The world’s top four women’s teams are in Vancouver for the Hockey Canada Cup, played in what will be the main venue for Olympic hockey this coming February, GM Place, home of the NHL Vancouver Canucks. (During the Olympics, the 18,600 arena will be renamed Canada Hockey Place).
This brings the comparison with the pre-Olympic event in Turin, six months before the 2006 games. Team USA came to the tournament in Italy as the reigning IIHF World Champion, winning the title for the first time in Sweden one year earlier and putting an end to Canada’s streak of nine consecutive world championship wins.
But in the test event it was all Canada, as they outclassed the U.S. twice, and carried the momentum to the Olympics six months later, winning all games, defeating Sweden in the final, en route to their second Olympic gold medal.
This time, the pressure is even bigger on the U.S. The Americans, who are looking for their first Olympic gold since Nagano 1998, are now double World Champions (winning gold in 2008 in China and in 2009 in Finland). They have also overtaken the Canadians in the IIHF World Women’s Ranking for the first time since its introduction in 2003.
But already in the test event opener on Monday, the United States hit a bump. Despite holding a 2-0 lead after the first period, the U.S. lost to Finland, 3-2. Finnish goaltender Noora Raty made 49 saves and Emma Laaksonen had the winner early in the third period.
It was a huge win for the Finns (ranked third) and only it’s second ever over the United States in women’s hockey.
The U.S. rebounded nicely on Tuesday, defeating Sweden 7-0, and they will likely get two chances to face-off against Canada, a team they have dominated for the last two seasons.
The first comes on Thursday in the last game of the round-robin and the second game will depend on the result of the semi-finals on Saturday. The tournament ends with the bronze and gold medal games on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Canada is determined to use the tournament to get back to the top, just like Turin four years ago. The defending Olympic champions have outclassed Sweden 7-0 and Finland 10-2.
Against the Finns, Caroline Ouellette and Rebecca Johnston each scored hat-tricks and Hayley Wickenheiser picked up her 300th international point with a first-period assist as Canada remained perfect with yet another rout.
Sweden looks to be in a re-building mode and is far away from being the team that defeated the United States in a shootout in the Turin 2006 Olympic semi-final, giving them a historic silver medal.
Not only are the Swedes losing big (0-14 after two games), but they have serious problems generating any offense. In Monday's game, Canadian goaltender Shannon Szabados needed to make only six saves for the shut-out.
Against the U.S., the Swedish women failed to register a shot on goal in the first period. In two games the team has been out-shot 91-18.
Head coach Peter Elander’s team needs to record a respectable score against rival Finland on Thursday. The good news is that there are still six months to go to the event which will make all this week's scores forgettable.
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