{"id":473848,"date":"2026-02-17T12:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473848\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:59:08","slug":"us-canada-will-meet-for-gold-for-the-7th-time-in-olympic-womens-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473848\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Canada will meet for gold for the 7th time in Olympic women’s hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 Marie-Philip Poulin won\u2019t dispute how good the Americans have looked in romping through the women\u2019s hockey tournament at the Milan Cortina Games<\/a>. And Canada\u2019s captain will readily acknowledge her team has yet to come close to playing its best.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s matters to Poulin, who continues building upon her \u201cCaptain Clutch\u201d reputation in her fifth Olympic Games, is having the opportunity to play in a one-game showdown with the gold medal on the line on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we know they\u2019re a talented team, a skilled team. They\u2019ve had a lot of success this year, obviously against us, and we\u2019re all aware of that,\u201d Poulin said. \u201cFor us as a group, it\u2019s going to be all about us, all about our heart and everything we\u2019re going to put on that ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Canada will face off for Olympic gold for a seventh time since women\u2019s hockey debuted at the 1998 Nagano Games in a rivalry between the sport\u2019s two global powers that never gets old.<\/p>\n

And this time, the Americans are the favorites.<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. clinched its berth with a 5-0 win over Sweden in semifinal play on Monday. And the defending champion Canadians followed with Poulin scoring twice to set the Olympic career goal record in a too-close-for-comfort 2-1 victory over Switzerland.<\/p>\n

For the Americans, it didn\u2019t matter who they faced in a tournament they\u2019ve dominated by going 6-0 and outscoring their opponents by a combined margin of 31-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played them quite a few times, so obviously, won\u2019t be surprised,\u201d defender Lee Stecklein said. \u201cWhoever we face, we\u2019ve got to be ready for that challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goalie Aerin Frankel stopped 21 shots for her third shutout of the tournament, and the Americans blew the game open with Abbey Murphy, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Hayley Scamurra scoring on consecutive shots over a 2:47 span late in the second period. Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has yet to trail or be tied after 0-0, and in position to become the third women\u2019s team to do so over the entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010. The Americans also extended their shutout streak to 331 minutes, 23 seconds, going back to Czechia\u2019s Barbora Jurickova beating Frankel on a breakaway in the second period of a tournament-opening 5-1 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re looking incredible. The whole tournament we\u2019ve really been consistent,\u201d Scamurra said. \u201cI don\u2019t even think we\u2019re at the peak, but I think our peak is getting that gold medal in hand for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadians\u2019 performance has been left open to questions and concerns.<\/p>\n

Aside from eking out a win over Switzerland, the defending Olympic champions dropped a 5-0 decision to the U.S. in the preliminary round \u2014 an outing Poulin missed due to a right knee injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The outcome marked the first time Canada has been shut out and its most lopsided loss in Olympic play. The Americans also hold the edge by having won seven straight dating to beating Canada twice at the world championships in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally love the underdog mentality,\u201d Canadian defender Renata Fast said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of noise on the outside, but there\u2019s has been tons of belief in the locker room and we\u2019ve gone through a ton of adversity this year,\u201d she added. \u201cThis is the moment we have been fighting for is to play for gold. And no better matchup than to play Team USA. I\u2019m so excited and excited to see the fight that this group brings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against Switzerland, Poulin opened the scoring 1:49 into the second period by skipping a shot from between the circles that bounced and banked in off goalie Andrea Braendli\u2019s stick. She made it 2-0 some 6 1\/2 minutes later by converting a rebound.<\/p>\n

Poulin now has 20 career goals<\/a> and broke the record of 18 held by former teammate and Hockey Hall of Famer Hayley Wickenheiser.<\/p>\n

Ann-Renee Desbiens stopped seven shots.<\/p>\n

Rahel Enzler scored for Switzerland 4:53 into the third period. Braendli, coming off a 40-save outing in a 1-0 quarterfinal win over Finland, finished with 44 saves.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s on to the gold medal game with U.S. seeking its third title after winning in 1998 and 2018, and the Canadians their sixth.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing matters. It\u2019s the gold medal game,\u201d Heise said of a potential rematch against Canada. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m going to say we\u2019ve done great and we\u2019ve had great success. You want to take that confidence and motivation, but you want to move forward. We\u2019re going to look for us and we\u2019re going do what we need to do on Thursday and hopefully come on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it could very well be the last meeting between the two teams\u2019 long-time stars<\/a>: Poulin, nicknamed \u201cCaptain Clutch,\u201d and U.S. captain Hilary Knight, who has already announced these will be her fifth and final Olympics.<\/p>\n

Sweden and Switzerland will play for bronze in a rematch of their meeting at the 2014 Sochi Games. Switzerland won 4-3 to win its first and only women\u2019s hockey medal.<\/p>\n

The Swedes are seeking to win their third Olympic medal, and first since winning silver at the 2006 Turin Games after upsetting the U.S. in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Ebba Svensson Traff stopped 19 of 23 shots before she was pulled after Coyne Schofield tipped in Laila Edwards\u2019 shot from the blue line with 3:50 left in the second period. Emma Soderberg took over, allowing a goal on 11 shots.<\/p>\n

Though the Swedes kept the game close through 35 minutes, the Americans eventually wore them down.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Olympic coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Marie-Philip Poulin won\u2019t dispute how good the Americans have looked in romping through the women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[190960,113110,219660,219665,219669,103,219658,219659,219668,219664,212921,6755,219662,219663,217749,45567,216129,219661,219666,200479,99,6804,219667,82958],"class_list":{"0":"post-473848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","9":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","10":"tag-abbey-murphy","11":"tag-andrea-braendli","12":"tag-ann-renee-desbiens","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-cayla-barnes","15":"tag-ebba-svensson-traff","16":"tag-emma-soderberg","17":"tag-hayley-scamurra","18":"tag-hilary-knight","19":"tag-hockey","20":"tag-laila-edwards","21":"tag-lee-stecklein","22":"tag-marie-philip-poulin","23":"tag-olympic-games","24":"tag-olympic-hockey","25":"tag-rahel-enzler","26":"tag-renata-fast","27":"tag-send-to-apple-news","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-sweden","30":"tag-taylor-heise","31":"tag-womens-hockey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}