Canada Drops Final of Rivalry Series - SportsWave Broadcasting

With many fighting the elements to attend the game Rivalry Series game that featured Canada play host to the US the highlight of the night was watching the smiles on the faces of all the young female players in the crowd.

The first pair of games were played December 14th and the 17th that saw the US win both by scores of 4-1 in Hartford and the second 2-1 in Moncton.

The game in Hartford was the 150th meeting between the rivals and despite the defeat, Canada still leads the all-time series 84-65-1.

The first two games saw both teams struggle on the special teams not being able to score on the numerous PP chance’s after going 0-2 in the first game and 0-12 in the second contest.

The first stop in Canada was at the Avenir Centre in Moncton, December 17th, followed by a pair on the West Coast.

Save-On-Foods Arena in Victoria hosted the first game Monday February 3rd, while the second was played two nights later in Vancouver at Rogers Arena, home of the Vancouver Canucks.

Monday saw Team Canada pull out an impressive 3-2 S/O win in the in the 152nd meeting between the two teams with Victoria Bach netting the game winner at 3:22 on the PP,

It wasn’t just the win that caused excitement, but the manner in which they pulled it off after Brigette Lacquette tied the game on the PP with only 6:48 remaining in the third.

It seemed obvious that heading into Wednesday’s game in Vancouver was to play as a unit and get more shots not just to the net, but on net.

Playing in front of 8,467 fans, many of which were young female hockey players wearing team jerseys that had Delta’s Whitney Saip-Dyck sing the Anthem.

The game saw four Female Officials used and played under Hockey Canada rules but no names are in the game summary.

The game saw Canada start Bruderheim’s Emerence Maschmeyer, while the US went with Katie Burt between the pipes with Maschmeyer being tested more than Burt through the 60 minutes of play.

The US opened the scoring at 8:19 as Dani Cameranesi with helpers going to Brianna Decker, Kendall Coyne Schofield forcing Canada to play more aggressively on both ends of the ice,

Canada tied the game at 11:40 as Daoust setting up Jocelyne Larocque for the tying goal of the period that would see one lone minor cross-checking penalty after 20 minutes of play.

It’s interesting to note that this was only the second goal in 62 career games for Larocque against the US.

The second was a scoreless affair, but riddled with penalties with Canada’s Emily Clark getting a Tripping minor at 1:44 giving the US the chance to take the lead.

This was short lived as the US were assessed a minor for Delay of Game (shooting the puck out of play) allowing us to see some 4 on 4 hockey.

The second period saw seven minors, three to Canada and four to the US, with the most obvious minor handed out to Haley Scamurra at 6:43 for Goaltender Interference after running over Maschmeyer, who seemed to “shake if off” as she told me in a post game interview.

The third saw Canada again run into penalty trouble taking what I call an undisciplined minor for Roughing at 1:53 in the third, only to have Canada hold the US off the scoreboard.

Canada pressured the US, only to have the US get a break on a turnover at 7:53 allowing Haley Scamurra to give the US the go-ahead goal.

Canada fought hard, but on what seemed to be a confused change while trying to pull Maschmeyer for the extra attacker the US capitalized sending one in the open net taking a 3-1 lead.

I mention confused as when Maschmeyer was leaving the net and about 40 feet away it seemed unsure as to who was jumping on to replace her allowing the US to get their empty net marker with 1:50 remaining, giving them a 3-1 lead and the victory.

The team’s head south with the US looking to close out the 2020 Rivalry Series and are expecting over 11,000 on hand for Saturday’s game Anaheim.

This was the first game back at Rogers Arena for Team Canada since the Gold Medal game of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and the 2-0 win over the United States.