Usa Hockey Women Never Watch That Game Again

Getty Images

All they could do was shake their heads, then milk shake Canada's easily.

United States helm Meghan Duggan was choking back tears. Some of her teammates didn't fifty-fifty bother trying.

The United States women's hockey team lost to Canada in the aureate medal game, again. Canada has won the gold medal, once more, for the quaternary sequent Wintertime Olympics, defeating the Americans for the tertiary time in this unparalleled run.

They are, without question, the ii best women's hockey teams on the planet. In the Olympic finals, Canada proved better in the end.

And that's what hurts the most about this loss for the Americans­—not only the players, listen y'all, just all jingoistic supporters of Team USA during the Olympics—Canada was better…in the stop.

For more than 56 minutes, the U.s. was the amend squad. It was the concluding three and a one-half that did them in.

American helm Meghan Duggan drew first blood in the 2d period to give Team USA a 1-0 pb earlier Alex Carpenter doubled the lead subsequently netting a power play goal just minutes into the 3rd, giving hope that finally, after all these years in the all those Olympics, Team USA could pull 1 out confronting Canada.

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

Information technology has been xvi years since the Americans won gilt in women'south hockey, defeating Canada in the terminal game in Nagano. The Canadians have not lost a game in the Olympics since. Not one game.

On Thursday, they came as close every bit e'er.

"We had them at the stop, up ii goals up nether 5 minutes and they merely pressured the states hard," Duggan told NBC's Pierre McGuire subsequently the game. "A couple of bounces went their way and they tied information technology up."

Chalking Canada's comeback to "a couple of bounces" is the understatement of the year. The offset Canadian goal was scored when the puck, which wasn't even headed on net, took a wicked deflection off American Kacey Bellamy just in front of the pucker, popping over the shoulder of netminder Jessie Vetter with 3:26 to go in the game.

With new life in a game it looked destined to lose, Canada kept the pressure on, decision-making the puck in the American zone before pulling goaltender Shannon Szabados with 95 seconds to play.

Frankly, Team USA looked nervous in the waning minutes, similar they expected the Canadians to tie the game. Despite those anxious moments, good fortune nearly befell the American side when the linesman inadvertently interfered with a Canadian defender trying to continue the puck in the offensive zone, allowing it to squirt gratuitous at the blue line and right to the stick of American Kelly Stack. Stack corralled the puck and cleared it the residual of the way downward the ice…only to hit the mail with 1:25 to play.

A goal there surely would have iced the game, but Canada retrieved the puck and marched back downward into the American zone, peppering the goal until Canadian heroine Marie-Philip Poulin slammed habitation the blaster with 54.6 seconds to play.

Devastation. Deflation. Disaster.

Team Us somehow managed to survive the remainder of the concluding minute and actually came out in the overtime with renewed focus. The Americans looked certain to correct the events that occurred late in the third when they were awarded a ability play after a Canada crosscheck well-nigh their own cyberspace. With a 4-on-iii reward, the Americans had it all right there for the taking.

Vi seconds later on, Jocelyne Lamoreux was chosen for a punishment, a weak whistle when she tapped the pads of Szabados after a quick salvage. Information technology was one of several horrible calls in the overtime menstruum. All of them, sadly, affected the event of an otherwise stellar competition.

The teams were forced to play 3-on-three, which given the larger ice in Olympic hockey seems like an utterly ridiculous fashion to decide a gold medal. Make up one's mind a gold it did, too, because the United states of america got caught in a bad line change during the three-on-three, forcing Hilary Knight to pull downwards Canadian veteran Hayley Wickenheiser on a articulate breakaway.

Inexplicably, the referee did not call a penalisation shot, but gave Canada another ability play—putting a fourth skater dorsum on the ice equally, thankfully, international rules don't allow teams skate 3-on-2. Poulin took advantage of the open ice, scoring her 2nd of the game on that power play and recording her second-sequent Olympic game winner over the United states in the process.

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Information technology was a disastrous result for the Americans. There is no other way to expect at it. To be upwards two goals on their archrival in the biggest game of their lives and lose the way they did? It's an unmitigated Olympics disaster.

The players couldn't even look at their silvery medals equally the Olympic committee presenters put them around each neck. If there was a aureate medal given out for scowls, the Americans would accept broken a world record in the procedure of winning that.

Mcguire asked Duggan what the team talked nigh on the water ice right subsequently the game. The American captain seemed emotional, only remained stoic, putting the loss in perspective.

Yous hold your heads high. You're proud of what we did this twelvemonth. Proud of the game we put along today. We are proud to be Americans. We're glad to correspond our land. At some signal, apparently, we'll exist proud of these silver medals. Right now it hurts a picayune bit. It was a great hockey game to be a role of.

Information technology was a great hockey game to sentry too.

In fact, both the games between the American and Canadian women were not just incredible to scout in terms of the comparative quality to the rest of the women'southward hockey tournament in Sochi, but they were ii of the most competitive contests in any sport at the Olympics.

All I was left thinking about after the game, other than a few weaker moments where I took shots at the Canadian national anthem on Twitter—I mean, what are they actually standing on guard for? Wild moose? Ice people? What!?—was "when'due south Game 3?"

Seriously, when is Game iii? I'd watch that in a heartbeat, and by the buzz these two games created during the Olympics, it's a safe bet others would as well.

These women genuinely do not like each other. This is as good a rivalry as any in American sports right now—maybe, if possible, better than the women's soccer rivalry with Canada—and it'south something absolutely worth watching again and again.

Harry How/Getty Images

Granted, the stakes are just this high every four years. The Americans have actually had the Canadians' number at the world championships recently, but nobody exterior of women's hockey circles seems to pay whatever existent attention to that tournament. Would it be possible for a women'southward hockey rivalry to sustain itself exterior of the Olympics?

It would, if information technology's handled properly. Forget virtually creating an American women'southward water ice hockey league. There's already professional person teams in Canada and at that place just isn't a marketplace for women's ice hockey in multiple cities around America. Also, there isn't plenty talent to go around.

Pushing the idea of a league is a bad idea. Merely look at the problems the WNBA has had, and we win every Olympic gold in basketball game. The women's soccer team has not only been dominant, but they have a lot more than international contest than these hockey teams and they've constantly struggled with developing a solid American professional league.

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

What organizers from both countries should practice is go on the games on an amateur level, but play a seven-game series every yr. Either play the games one time a week for well-nigh ii months or make information technology best of nine and play in one case a month, which gives the rivalry a better chance of carrying on for nearly of the year.

Hold half the games in American cities and half in Canadian cities and requite the last game to whichever country is the current loving cup holder. Make a badass trophy to give to the winner and promote the heck out of it on idiot box and in each local market to make sure the games are sold out.

Turn the USA-Canada rivalry into a barnstorming tour of North America, playing not only for bragging rights, but for national pride.

Certainly that result volition never come close to matching the intensity and significance of this gold medal game. But if nosotros got anything shut to what those 2 teams showed in the game on Th, everyone should want to see that more than once every iv years.

Still, no affair how many times they do play between now and 2018, the U.S. women will never forget the feeling they had today. The way that game ended, they never should.

wigginsfrocceptere.blogspot.com

Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1967871-us-womens-hockey-let-gold-slip-away-in-gut-wrenching-loss-to-rival-canada

Share this post