Gold On The Line

What better finish would you expect to see in Women’s hockey that having Canada play the US in the final Championship Gold Medal game in Sochi.

Both teams displayed skills that is only unsurpassed by the Men’s Championship, but while unique, they are the same in some areas of the game.

The US hammered Sweden by a huge margin of 6-1 taking the overall goal output to 20 goals and were led by Amanda Kessel, Brianna Decker and Kendal Coyne who each have managed to get six points in only four games.

The three players managed to combine for a total of seven points against Finland, while Canada won against Switzerland and shocked Swiss “tender’ Florence Schelling, who stopped 109 shots in two games.

The Women’s team managed to pull off a 3-1 win advancing them to their fifth straight Gold Medal game and in doing so they scored three goals in just over four minutes in the first period alone.

Canada and the United States have met in three of the four Gold Medal games in Olympic history in which Canada won gold in 2002 and 2010.

The US claimed Gold at the inaugural tournament in Nagano in 1998, but Canada also won Gold in 2006 after Sweden beat the US in the semi-final.

The Canadians beat the US in the preliminary round, winning the round robin finale 3-2 coming off a pair of goals from Meghan Agosta-Marciano.

That was only the second time in the history of the Olympic Women’s Tournament that the North American rivals met without a Gold Medal up for grabs.

Prior to the Olympics, the US beat Canada by a 3-2 score at the 2013 Women’s World Championships in Ottawa in the Gold Medal game in Amanda Kessel got the eventual game winning goal.

Canada responded by beating  the U.S. in the 4 Nations Cup in November by a score of 4-2 to claiming the eventual tournament title.

They have met six other times since October in an exhibition series in which the US took the final four games of the series all of which were played in December. Canada did however win the opening two games that were played earlier in October.

History – The Olympic Gold Medal Games played between both the US and Canada

1998: USA 3, CAN 1 – Nagano, Japan

2002: Canada 3, USA 2 – Salt Lake City, USA

2006: Canada 4, Sweden 1 – Turin, Italy

2010: Canada 2, USA 0 – Vancouver, Canada