{"id":335391,"date":"2025-12-09T21:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335391\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:42:11","slug":"canada-u-s-women-set-for-final-pair-of-olympic-tune-up-games-in-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335391\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada, U.S. women set for final pair of Olympic tune-up games in Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. goaltender Aerin Frankel blocks a shot in front of Rory Guilday (6) and Canada’s Natalie Spooner (24) in the third period of a Rivalry Series game last month in Cleveland.Sue Ogrocki\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s best players in women\u2019s hockey get one last chance to forge chemistry, and beat the archrival United States, before the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

Canada and the U.S. clash Wednesday and Saturday at Edmonton\u2019s Rogers Place to complete a four-game Rivalry Series.<\/p>\n

The Americans took the first two games 4-1 in Cleveland and 6-1 in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n

Those were gaudy scores considering one of the most storied rivalries in women\u2019s sport usually produces games decided by one goal, often in overtime.<\/p>\n

Winning in Edmonton is important, says head coach Troy Ryan, but there are other considerations with February\u2019s Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, on the horizon, and the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League that didn\u2019t exist four years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to have results like that, but there\u2019s part, to me, that you can justify a little bit,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to put everybody in multiple situations and test them and see how they would handle different scenarios.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because of the evaluation scenario and some of the dynamics we\u2019re trying to sort through, I just continued to play people in most situations. We\u2019re glad we saw some things that we need to see, good and bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the reigning world champion U.S. started its top goalies Aerin Frankel in Cleveland and Gwyneth Philips in Buffalo, Canada went with the more inexperienced Eve Gascon in the first game and Kayle Osborne in the second.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada goaltender Ann-Ren\u00e9e Desbiens (35) will be in net for one of Canada’s two final Olympic tune-up games against the U.S. in Edmonton.Tony Avelar\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s roster for Edmonton returns 20 players from the U.S. leg of the series and adds veteran goaltender Ann-Ren\u00e9e Desbiens, defenders Jocelyne Larocque and Nicole Gosling, and forwards Brianne Jenner and Emily Clark.<\/p>\n

They draw in for goaltender Gascon, defenders Micah Zandee-Hart and Kati Tabin, and forwards Hannah Miller and Sarah Nurse, who played in the first two games.<\/p>\n

The last two games of the series serve multiple purposes for Canada, which will attempt to defend its Olympic title claimed in Beijing in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I hear the word \u2019priorities,\u2019 my mother used to say, \u2019if you chase two rabbits, both get away,\u2019\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say it in hockey all the time. There generally can only be one, but you\u2019d like to dabble in more than one. We\u2019d like to close the gap a little bit here and have some confidence heading into the Olympics, but we\u2019ve still got some sorting out to do. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to give some people further opportunities and looks and see if they can have a way to have an impact before we make some final selections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey Canada is expected to name its 23-player Olympic roster in early January after a selection process drastically different from previous Winter Games because of the PWHL, now in its third season.<\/p>\n

Instead of centralizing the women in Calgary for six months and playing games against male triple-A or Junior A teams, Hockey Canada has worked around the PWHL\u2019s schedule with three two-week training camps in September, October and November before the league started Nov. 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting year to say the least, going through kind of the new norm of getting together every two weeks and now starting the league,\u201d said Canada\u2019s general manager Gina Kingsbury, who is also GM of the PWHL\u2019s Toronto Sceptres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Edmonton trip will be a really great opportunity, now that we\u2019ve played a few weeks in the league to get back together and to have one final kind of connect before decisions are made in January and off we go to Games. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t underestimate the value of connection and the relationships that we all have and the trust that we build over time. The connection piece here in Edmonton is super important before we head to Milan in February.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey Canada has been waiting for months for a ruling by the International Ice Hockey Federation on the status of Miller.<\/p>\n

She played for host China in Beijing. Miller also represented Canada in back-to-back women\u2019s world under-18 championships in 2013 and 2014, so Kingsbury seeks Miller\u2019s reinstatement to Canada.<\/p>\n

The IIHF states a player can switch national eligibility just once in a career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s still at the IIHF level,\u201d Kingsbury said. \u201cThere\u2019s still back and forth on some things. We thought we were going to get an answer soon. We haven\u2019t got that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. goaltender Aerin Frankel blocks a shot in front of Rory Guilday (6)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-335391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}