{"id":468119,"date":"2026-02-11T13:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468119\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:47:09","slug":"after-poulin-injury-and-physical-tilt-with-u-s-canadians-struggling-to-find-the-line-at-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468119\/","title":{"rendered":"After Poulin injury and physical tilt with U.S., Canadians struggling to find \u2018the line\u2019 at Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

United States forward Abbey Murphy runs into Canada goalkeeper Emerance Maschmeyer during Tuesday’s preliminary round match in Milan.Petr David Josek\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

A few games into the Olympics, Canada\u2019s women\u2019s hockey players are scratching their collective heads, trying to determine exactly where the line is between a clean, hard play and a trip to the penalty box.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not alone. Across the board, the women\u2019s tournament has seen a more physical brand of play emerge in Milan than some players thought would be tolerated at the Winter Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Physical is exactly how Canada wants to play. But after captain Marie-Philip Poulin went down<\/a> with a suspected knee injury Monday after being taken hard into the boards against Czechia, and a similarly rough game against the U.S. on Tuesday, some players are wondering just how physical they\u2019re allowed to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately we don\u2019t know the line yet because some things are let go and some things aren\u2019t,\u201d forward Julia Gosling said after the Poulin injury, a game in which she suggested some of the Czech hits were \u201ca little dirtier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Czech forward Kristyna Kaltounkova, who plays with Team Canada members Sarah Fillier and Kristin O\u2019Neill on the New York Sirens of the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League, was given two-minute penalty for an illegal hit on the play.<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Canada’s shutout loss to the U.S. makes it official: Women’s hockey is now a one-horse race<\/a><\/p>\n

Kaltounkova said there was no malice and believed it was a clean hit. Canada\u2019s players thought it might have been over the line \u2013 though no one seems to know exactly where that line might be.<\/p>\n

In the first period against the U.S. on Tuesday, Canadian forward Blayre Turnbull was called for an illegal hit after she collided with Abbey Murphy while the American was getting up from her knees on a play. With the referee\u2019s arm in the air, Murphy then drove to the net and collided with Canadian goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens, but was not penalized.<\/p>\n

Team Canada coach Troy Ryan summoned the referee to the bench for an explanation. Asked about it after the game, Ryan said he understood the penalty to Canada, but couldn\u2019t figure out why the second hit on the Canadian goalie also wasn\u2019t a punishable offence.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that call, Blayre kind of made contact with [Murphy] while she was kind of down, so I understand the call,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cBut I think [Murphy] tried to go into the goalie on the play … I expected that one to be evened up for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n

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

Julia Gosling is Team Canada’s leading scorer thus far at the Olympics. She said the team is trying to \u2018find that line\u2019 with how far to take physical play.Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s arguing against physical play. It\u2019s how many of the players want to play, and the direction the women\u2019s game is going with the advent of the PWHL.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that players like Gosling, who leads Canada with three goals in as many games, aren\u2019t sure how far they can go in Milan, while things seem clearer in the PWHL. And in high-stakes games like the Olympics, the existence of a grey area is risky, since it could leave teams shorthanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s hard for our team because I find we\u2019re a more physical team than the U.S., so we\u2019re trying to find that line and be physical,\u201d Gosling said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what our game is like in the PWHL. But it seems they don\u2019t allow certain calls here and it\u2019s hard to know what they\u2019re going to call. So when you\u2019re giving up five or six penalties, they\u2019re probably going to score on a couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a 5-0 loss to the Americans, Canada is in no danger of missing the playoff round. But there\u2019s less margin for error when the games start to matter a lot more, Gosling said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to learn that line soon. It will matter in those playoff rounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overt physicality has historically resulted in whistles at the Olympics, while the PWHL is building a reputation for being a more hit-friendly league. <\/p>\n

With so many players from the PWHL at the Olympics \u2013 more than 80 per cent of the rosters in the Canada-U.S. game are part of the league \u2212 players and coaches have noticed the games in Milan are more physical than expected, but with mixed results when it comes to how penalties are called.<\/p>\n

After the U.S. opened the tournament with a 5-1 win over Czechia, American head coach John Wroblewski said the team noticed a distinct uptick in rough stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hitting, the hooking. I was telling the referees that they could have used any part of the rule book,\u201d Wroblewski said. \u201cIf that is the standard, we will be ready for it in the next couple of games.\u201d<\/p>\n

American forward Hayley Scamurra agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t sure how much hitting they would allow. But it felt like full-on hitting, for sure,\u201d Scamurra said after the U.S. game against Czechia. \u201cI personally embrace that part of the game, our whole team does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carla MacLeod, who won gold twice for Canada as a player, in Turin in 2006 and again in Vancouver in 2010, now coaches the Czech team. She said it\u2019s important not to stifle physicality in the game with too many borderline calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese girls train so hard, the last thing you want is to take away the physical side of the game,\u201d MacLeod said. \u201cIt\u2019s an innate part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: United States forward Abbey Murphy runs into Canada goalkeeper Emerance Maschmeyer during Tuesday’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,187287,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-468119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-olympicstaff","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468119","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=468119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}