The American women's hockey team celebrates handing Canada its first-ever Olympic shutout, in a 5-0 preliminary round win on Tuesday.Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
The knock on international women’s hockey has always been that it’s a two-team competition, featuring 10 teams. What happens if this is becoming a one-team sort of deal?
Canada had its excuses in hand before Tuesday night’s opening round encounter with the U.S.A. Without Marie-Philip Poulin – injured during a game Monday – they’re maybe 60, 70 per cent the team they could be.
It’s not that Poulin scores a third of the goals. It’s that when she’s on the ice against the U.S., her team believes it has the upper hand. That’s her magic. So in a weird way, things were set up perfectly for the Canadians.
Lose? No problem. We’ll catch you again with our No. 1 on the bench in the final.
Win? Even better. Now you can see our depth and tremble.
Canada takes frustrating 5-0 loss to U.S. in women's Olympic hockey
But there’s losing and there’s losing. Canada chose the second way.
Canada lost 5-0. It wasn’t close. It wasn’t even close to close. One of two things is happening – Canada is either rope-a-doping its biggest rivals, or the era of duopoly in the women’s game is in the process of ending.
A representative moment in Tuesday’s game – the second American goal. The move started with the Americans storming out of the Canadian end. Canada drizzled after them.
American Abbey Murphy – who’s a stylistic combo of Nikita Kucherov and Sean Avery – chased the puck in the corner. Two Canadian defenders followed her in there. Somehow, two other Americans had the complete freedom of the front of the net. Where were their markers? Hard to say. They weren’t even in the camera shot yet.
Canada doesn't have a player like American defender Laila Edwards, who scored her team's fifth and final goal in its decisive win on Tuesday.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
The two Americans were so open, they almost tripped each other. Hannah Bilka did the honours.
That wasn’t a goal. It was the first segment in some future how-not-to training tutorial. First thing, kids at home – you’re going to have to try. Can’t win at hockey if you don’t try.
After even casual viewing of this tournament so far, it is hard not to notice the difference between the Canadian and American teams.
The Americans are very like Canada, but the Canada of several Olympics ago – young, hungry and fast. The Americans now have the advantage in all those categories, plus they’re bigger.
The Canadians just do not have players like Laila Edwards, a 6-foot-1, 22-year-old defender who never seems to come off the ice.
Canada’s women’s hockey team has something to prove in Milan
Or Murphy, who took up so much property inside Canada’s head she ought to be taxed by Ottawa. At the start of the second period, Sarah Fillier popped off the bench and launched herself straight into Murphy. It’s fun when people want to send a message, but less so when the message is, ‘We’re so focused on you, I can’t even see the puck’.
By late in the second period, it was 4-0 and you were starting to think things about this Canadian team that no one’s ever thought. For instance, should they pull the goalie? Has this team ever had to do that before? Not because they want to give everybody, including the locker room attendants, a chance to play, but because they need the help.
The first time they threw the camera up to Poulin, sitting in the stands, she raised her arm. It was going wrong, but she had the energy to look confident. The second time, she didn’t bother pretending. She had her face buried in a hand, like she was stifling a scream.
By the third period, you were starting to have NHL thoughts. Maybe don’t bother with the face shields. Maybe lose the gloves and tape a roll of quarters in each fist. Sadly, no.
As the Americans celebrated Hannah Bilka's second goal of the game, Canada felt the absence of its injured captain, Marie-Philip Poulin.Petr David Josek/The Associated Press
Canada has been beaten badly by the U.S. in the past. But not like this at an Olympics. You have to reach back to Nagano – the better part of two generations ago – to locate anything like this kind of loss. They’ve never been shut out by them at this tournament, or anyone else.
Following the loss, the Word of the Day for the Canadians was “learning.” Nearly every player who talked said it.
“I guess the pressure kind of got to us a little,” said Julia Gosling. That is another sort of thing you say, but it’s being a little generous to yourselves.
If there’s a positive out of this, it’s that the bar of expectation has now been set for the final. Don’t bother trying to see it. It’s underground. Any sensible, neutral observer who watched this game must be certain – Canada has no chance.
In any other sport, you’d be wondering if they’re capable of making the knockout rounds, never mind the championship game. But they will. As a gulf begins to open between the top two, the one between that pair and everyone else remains.
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Canada has nine days until the final. That’s where its collective mind should be already. If Canada can’t beat the Finlands and Switzerlands of the world without really thinking about it, then it has even bigger problems.
Tuesday strongly suggested that Canada can no longer beat the U.S. in a straight-up game. They don’t have the horses. Okay, no problem. Time to bend the game.
Canada has only one remaining advantage over the Americans – they feel they must win. The Americans may want it, but it won’t affect the vast American sports psyche for more than five minutes if they lose. Then it’s back to worrying about college football.
If Canada gets hammered two times in a row, it’s going to be a national tragedy. If the men lose too, a national catastrophe.
In the past, the Canadian women’s team has avoided feeling that kind of pressure. On the rare recent occasion, singular, when they have lost here, the rallying cry began almost immediately. They had to get them next time, and they did.
If Canada loses here, it will no longer feel like next time is a given. That’s how bad this looked.
So if Canada’s most dominant team wants to have any shot at gold in Milan, it’s time to start treating this chance as if it’s its last.