Canada captures its 12th worlds gold medal championship, defeating the U.S. 2-1 on Sunday.
HERNING, Denmark –
Canada’s National Women’s Team won its 12th gold medal at the
IIHF Women’s World Championship, earning a close 2-1 win over the United
States on Sunday night.
Brianne Jenner (Oakville, Ont./PWHPA)
broke a scoreless game at the 9:30 mark of the second period, finishing off
a passing play fromMarie-Philip Poulin (Beauceville, Que./PWHPA) and Ella Shelton (Ingersoll, Ont./PWHPA) to give Canada the
lead. The goal would be her 100th international point, tying her
with Cassie Campbell-Pascall and Gillian Apps for 13th all-time
with Canada’s National Women’s Team. Jenner would make it
a 2-0 lead just 1:24 later with her second of the game.
A late power-play in the second period for the U.S. would cut into Canada’s
lead as Abby Roque would put one behind Ann-Renée Desbiens (Clermont, Que./PWHPA) to make it a 2-1
game after 40 minutes. Both sides would have chances to score in the third,
including the U.S. who pulled netminder Nicole Hensley with just over
two-and-a-half minutes to go in the game, but Desbiens would shut the door
for the 2-1 Canada win.
“It’s always nice to get on the board first,” Jenner says. “We always had
the mindset that we were going to find a way to get the job done. It felt
good just to get on the board and our energy jumped up after that. I think
the second period was probably our strongest of the game and really set the
tone for the game. It feels amazing and it’s probably the hardest [gold
medal] of the last three (2021 Worlds and the Beijing Winter Olympics), the
U.S. was hungry and it’s hard to three-peat. It’s going to be even harder
to defend it in April and we know the road doesn’t get any easier, but
we’re committed and throughout our whole lineup we have people that will do
anything for the team, so it was great to find a way to get it done.”
Following the tournament,
Sarah Fillier (Georgetown, Ont./Princeton University, ECAC)
was named to the Media All-Star Team.
“It feels good, and the best part is the way the team won, they found a
different way to win,” says Troy Ryan (Spryfield, N.S.) “I mentioned it to a couple of players, you put that in
the bank and it’s something you can draw on down the road. Maybe when
things aren’t clicking as they should be, you always have a Worlds like
this to say it doesn’t matter, there’s other ways you can dig down, be
physical, play a little grittier. It’s just nice for this team to have that
in the bank and know they can draw on it.”
Canada was 3-0-0-1 through the preliminary round, finishing second in the
Group A standings with wins over Finland, Japan and Switzerland before
losing to the U.S. in the final preliminary game. Canada earned a trip to
the gold medal game with an 3-0 shutout of Sweden in the quarterfinals and
an 8-1 semifinal win over Switzerland.
Canada has captured 12 gold medals at the IIHF Women’s World Championship
(1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2012, 2021, 2022) in
addition to eight silver (2005, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017)
and one bronze (2019).
For more information on Hockey Canada and Canada’s National Women’s Team,
please visit HockeyCanada.ca, or
following along through social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
