BEIJING — As far as palate-whetting Winter Olympics appetizers go, this one might as well have been a plate of foie gras topped with golden caviar and shaved truffles. Heck, served up nine days from now it would no doubt double as a delectable main course, too. Alas it was only the group stage, and so Canada’s 4-2 victory over the United States on Monday afternoon held little purpose other than to tease our tastebuds for what is all but certain to come.
“Any time we get to play the U.S. it’s always a lot of fun, a lot of pride in the line,” Canadian forward Sarah Nurse said afterwards. “And definitely a lot of hostility there.”
It’s not that both sides played perfect games. Canada spent the first period coughing up turnovers in its defensive zone, relying on the great wall that is goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens to survive. The defending gold medalists, meanwhile, managed a whopping 53 shots on Desbiens but mustered few grade-A scoring chances beyond second-period tallies from forwards Dani Cameranesi and Alex Carpenter. The ice was sloppily choppy. The arena was eerily empty.
And yet it’s hard to imagine anything more intense for a meaningless preliminary tilt.
“Definitely a physical game, definitely fast,” American star Hilary Knight said after. “That’s the brand of hockey you’re signing up for when you turn on the TV and it’s U.S. versus Canada.”
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The turning point came in the second period, after Carpenter chipped a backhander past Desbiens to put the U.S. ahead, 2–1. Twenty-six seconds later, the PA announcer at Wukesong Arena was still busy listing off the goal in Mandarin when Nurse intercepted an errant U.S. pass, flung a spin-o-rama pass to Brianne Jenner and watched her line mate pot the tying goal. Two and a half more minutes passed before Canada’s dominant second line went to work, with Natalie Sooner hitting Jamie Lee Rattray at the goalmouth to put them ahead for good. “There was some frustration,” U.S. coach Joel Johnson said. “We felt we were playing pretty well, then it seemed like every time we stubbed our own toe, it ended up in the back of our net.”
Such is life against Canada, winners of four of six gold medals since the sport was introduced in Nagano in 1998, as well as the most recent world championships. (The U.S. has captured the other two Olympic gold medals, including most recently at the 2018 PyeongChang games.) Thanks to the pandemic, the world’s two best women’s hockey squads—by a wide margin—have spent the past two years battling each other and virtually no one else. Tendencies have been memorized. Animus has festered. Little surprises those involved. "It’s a wonderful game to use as a measuring stick to figure out what works and doesn’t work and stay hungry,” Knight said.
What worked Tuesday were the smooth defensive zone exits, speedy transitions and sustained offensive zone time that led to an onslaught of pucks peppered at Desbiens. "We pushed the pace," U.S. captain Kendall Coyne Schofield said. What didn’t? "[Letting] down in that second period,” winger Abbey Murphy said. “I think we had some tough shifts and you can’t do that, especially in a game against Canada."
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For Nurse and her teammates, the tight turnaround from Monday’s masked rout of the Russian Olympic Committee could’ve proved detrimentally draining. Instead, they smothered the American power play (1 for 6) with an aggressive penalty kill; limited the top U.S. line of Knight, Coyne Schofield and Hannah Brandt to seven combined shots; and hooted in celebration on the bench as captain Marie Poulin flicked a slick third-period penalty shot past goalie Maddie Rooney for a two-goal cushion that held until the end. “It’s so much fun,” Nurse said. “There was no problem getting up this morning because we knew it was going to be a good one. We knew it was going to be a big one.”
When it comes to the fiercest rivalry at these Winter Olympics, they always are.
