2010 Olympics: Canada's Women To Meet Team USA in Gold Medal Game

Mark RitterFeb 22, 2010

Written By: Mark “The Hard Hitter” Ritter

With all the attention that has been thrown at the Men’s Olympic Hockey tournament, it is easy to forget that the Women are also playing in Vancouver.

Today, on the heals of Team USA’s upset win against Canada in the Men’s tournament Sunday evening, both Canada and The United States won their semi-final matches to earn the right to fight it out for the gold medal in the woman’s tournament.

First came Team USA’s 9-1 Victory over Sweden—a team that just four years ago upset the Americans in the semifinals by a 3-2 margin.

To be fair, Sweden’s victory over the States was the country's own version of a “Miracle On Ice”—nobody outside of a few delusional family members of the Swedish team were looking for Sweden to repeat its 2006 performance.

Despite being ranked fourth coming into the Vancouver games, Sweden got smoked by the heavily favored, highly skilled American squad. Truth be told, Sweden was never in this game as the women in red, white, and blue disposed of the girls in yellow and blue with ease.

For Canada, their match against Finland would have similar results—a 5-0 butt-whipping of the overmatched Fins.

Coming into the match Canada had an unblemished record against Finland, 13-0 all-time.

Despite a valiant effort by Finland's goaltender Noora Raty—who faced 50 shots on the night—Finland was left overwhelmed by Canada and were never in the game. Comparatively, Finland managed a paltry 11 shots, none of them legitimate scoring chances.

Both games serve as yet another example of just how far apart the rest of the hockey playing world is from Canada and the U.S., the fact is, the Woman’s tournament has been so one-sided that there have been calls for organizers to eliminate the event from future Olympic games.

To put the big picture into perspective, Canada outscored its opposition in the tournament by a margin of 46-2, while Team USA outscored their opponents by a margin of 31-1. Comparatively, Finland and Sweden scored a combined 17 goals in the tournament, giving up 23 in the process.

Another stat worth noting—Canada and the United States were the only two teams to be on the plus side of the goal differential (Canada +39, Team USA +30). Every other team was in the minus, with Slovakia leading the way in futility with a goals for/goals against differential of -25.

Canada lost to the American’s by a score of 3-1 in 1998 but have since won gold in 2002 and 2006—a 3-2 victory over Team USA in 2002 and a 4-1 victory over Sweden in 2006, respectively.

Outside of the Olympics, Canada had won every World Championship from 1990 through 2004 until the United States won it for the first time in 2005. Since then, Canada has won just one World Championship (2007) with the Americans winning both the 2008 and 2009 IIHF World Championships—both victories coming over the Canadians.

Despite the Women’s tournament seemingly being a two team race, when everything is said and done, Canada and the United States should put on a show in the gold medal match, which takes place on Thursday afternoon at 3:30 Pacific Time.

*****To check out more of my Olympic coverage—including my take on Team Canada's decision to start Roberto Luongo—check out my website by using the following link: