Over the next 12 days, the best women hockey players in the world will convene in Calgary and play a 10-team tournament that will set the stage for the 2022 Winter Olympics. In a fractured professional women's hockey landscape, this is a pretty rare opportunity to see the best in the world face off against each other in a way they don't often get to do.
History
The United States, Canada, and Finland have been the class of the tournament since it began in 1990. Every gold medal game has featured 2 of those 3, and every bronze medal game has featured the other.
| Country | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
| CAN | 10 | 8 | 1 |
| USA | 9 | 10 | 0 |
| FIN | 0 | 1 | 12 |
| RUS | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| SWE | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| SUI | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Finland finally broke through and earned 2nd place in the most recent tournament in 2019, so now the group of contenders has expanded to a trio.
Format
There are 10 teams, competing in two groups. The top 5 internationally ranked teams are in Group A and all will qualify for the knockout bracket.
| Group A | Group B |
|---|---|
| Canada | Czech Rep. |
| USA | Denmark |
| Finland | Germany |
| Russia | Hungary |
| Switzerland | Japan |
After round-robin group play, group A will be seeded 1-5, and then the top three teams from group B will be seeded 6-8, and the quarterfinals will be 1 v. 8, 2 v. 7, 3 v. 6, 4 v. 5. The losers of round 1 will play ranking games in order to settle who ends up ranked 5 through 8 while the semifinalists will settle the 1-4 rankings.
Schedule - Group A
All USA and Canada games will be broadcast on the NHL network. ESPN+ will be streaming all the games not involving the US or Canada.
AUGUST 20
AUGUST 22
AUGUST 24
AUGUST 26
|
STANDINGS
GROUP A GROUP B |
Previews
USA - They can score. Kendall Coyne-Schofield and Brianna Decker are the stars of the show. Abby Roque is the newcomer, having just graduated from Wisconsin in 2020 this will be her first World Championships. The defense and goaltending are also a strength with Megan Keller being the blue line offensive threat, and Cayla Barnes being the best defender.
The Ice Garden Team USA preview.
CANADA - They have the best player in the world, Marie-Philip Poulin, which is certainly an advantage. The other advantage they have over the US and Finland is their defense are really strong skaters. They don't quite have the forward depth of USA, but they will probably be favored to win the tourney on home ice.
The Ice Garden Team Canada preview
FINLAND - I just don't know much about Finland, so here's Mikael Nahabedian again, providing a nice concise overview of the roster.
Finland may not have the depth of Team Canada or Team USA but superstars like Karvinen and Savolainen could very well put them in the mix to win gold.
Goaltending is the biggest factor when it gets to knockout rounds, and Finland has the elite goalie it needs to make some noise.
The Ice Garden Team Finland preview.
US won 3-0 over Switzerland. Shots were 58-10. The Swiss goalie played out of her mind, but the result was never in doubt. Coyne-Schofield and Decker got a goal and an assist each.
Canada beat Finland 5-3, avenging their semifinal loss two years ago.
55 shots blocked over 60 minutes is a lot.
A superhuman effort. Sounds like she literally played out of her mind.
US-Finland was lopsided in shots again. 39 to 10 in shots, 3-0 in goals. The USA shooting percentage hasn't been spectacular, but their opponents are still stuck at 0%.
Grace Zumwinkle has a goal in each of the first two games in her first Team USA action.
Canada easily beat Russia 5-1. Top spot in the group is coming down to Thursday's US-Canada game, as expected.
Oooh! We've got a "Hockey" post category now!
Yep! Can't have the non-NHL posts floating out there uncategorized.
USA is ahead 3-0 again.
US-Canada today. Perhaps the only game in Group A that doesn't have an easily predictable outcome.
I ran down the possible QF matchups last night
https://twitter.com/WWhangdoodle/status/1430714310968369156
Canada defeats USA 5-1. Oof. Canada dominated early and got ahead quickly. A bad game for USA, but probably doesn't change much going into the quarterfinal round this weekend.
Saturday's QF games
1-CAN v. 8. GER, 6:00PM
2-USA v. 7. JPN, 2:30PM
3. FIN v. 6. CZE, 9:30PM
4. RUS v. 5. SUI, 11:00AM
The semifinals will be Monday and all the winners of the quarterfinals will be re-seeded.
USA beat Japan easily, and then took out Finland 3-0 (again) today.
Canada is in the middle of beating Switzerland, so it looks like another US-Canada final.
6:30 pm tomorrow, I'd bet on a better US showing than on Thursday.
2-2 after 2 periods.
Buckle up.
Team USA scored in the first period, Team Canada scored in the second period, so Team USA is due for third period, right?
Nope. Overtime!
Canada gold.
I'm claiming this as good hockey analysis. Pretty much nailed it at the start of the tourney.