Honestly? This team isn't all that likeable. Putting aside the whole "Pay or I don't play!" stunt they pulled right before the World Championships, the veterans have been more about gimme gimme gimme, winning personal accolades, and reclaiming the gold medal that was "stolen" from them at Sochi than playing as a team and representing their country. Yes "stolen from them" is their words not mine. They are so mentally hung up on beating Canada they can't get out of their own way.
Goaltending is the magic elixir, though (See: Hasek, Dominik, 1998)
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but............ I don't think it would be a bad thing if we did not have a gold medal rematch.
I think women's hockey might benefit from someone else pulling a surprise because it feels a bit too predictable every 4 years- USA beats everyone else but Canada, Canada has not lost save since Nagano.
Sweden and Switzerland and Finland are capable and in a one game scenario, as we saw with the Miracle on Ice in 1980, on any given day, any team can be beat
Sweden did beat the US women in Torino, but.......... Canada losing before the gold medal game to someone else would basically be the women's equivalent of Belarus/Salo '02.
Goaltending is the magic elixir, though (See: Hasek, Dominik, 1998)
Just nonsense. The US has been dominant in the World Championship, there's absolutely no reason to think that they couldn't win Olympic gold as well.Let's be honest- a Canadian women's Olympic loss would be as big a surprise as the Penguins losing to the Islanders in 1993 or Sweden losing to Belarus.
Sweden beat the US and then proceeded to get demolished in the gold medal game by Canada. Nobody wants that in a gold medal game.
What?
That would be a great match-up for the final.
You want the gold medal game to be 6 to 1 demolition with no drama whatsoever? That was like watching Canada beat Sweden in 2014 on the men’s side. I’m Canadian but that was like watching paint dry.
Canada was outplayed. This was a textbook goalie win....
They meet again, and I would bet on USA winning. They were the better team 90% of this game.