CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy ―The goes to have an effect on the U.S. ladies’s hockey rivalry with Canada.
And that’s a very good factor.
Between them, the U.S. and Canada have gained each world title and Olympic gold medal in ladies’s hockey. The groups, the truth is, have confronted off within the title recreation in all however one world championship and one Olympics.
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However a sport that is overwhelmingly dominated by one or two groups isn’t sustainable – take a look at softball’s struggles to remain within the Olympics. Which is but one more reason the .
Japan and France are the one nations within the 10-team Olympic event that won’t have a minimum of one PWHL participant on their roster. The U.S. and Canada have 39 of the league’s gamers between them. There are one other 22 unfold throughout the opposite six European groups, together with eight on the Czech Republic’s squad.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
The U.S. ladies’s hockey workforce’s pursuit for its first Olympic gold medal since 2018 started with a matchup towards Czechia to open the 2026 Winter Video games.Gamers of Staff United States have a good time as Alex Carpenter of Staff United States scores a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the first interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia through the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic video games at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Area on February 05, 2026 in Milan, Italy.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
The U.S. ladies’s hockey workforce’s pursuit for its first Olympic gold medal since 2018 started with a matchup towards Czechia to open the 2026 Winter Video games.Gamers of Staff United States have a good time as Alex Carpenter of Staff United States scores a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the first interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia through the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic video games at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Area on February 05, 2026 in Milan, Italy.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Alex Carpenter of Staff United States scores a objective towards Staff Czechia in ladies’s ice hockey Group A play through the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Video games.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Megan Keller of Staff United States celebrates an help on a objective with teammates within the first interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Tereza Plosova of Staff Czechia skates with the puck towards Caroline Harvey of Staff United States within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Pleasure Dunne of Staff United States scores a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Pleasure Dunne of Staff United States celebrates after scoring a objective towards Staff Czechia in ladies’s ice hockey Group A play.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia defends the online towards Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia reacts after permitting a objective to Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States celebrates with teammates after scoring a objective towards Staff Czechia within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Lee Stecklein of Staff United States skates with the puck within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Barbora Jurickova of Staff Czechia scores a objective previous Aerin Frankel of Staff United States within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Barbora Jurickova of Staff Czechia scores a objective previous Aerin Frankel of Staff United States within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Aerin Frankel of Staff United States appears to be like on in web within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Hilary Knight of Staff United States skates with the puck defended by Natalie Mlynkova of Staff Czechia within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Hilary Knight of Staff United States scores a objective within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Hilary Knight of Staff United States scores a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Hilary Knight of Staff United States scores a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the second interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Hilary Knight of Staff United States celebrates with Alex Carpenter and different teammates after scoring a objective towards Staff Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Abbey Murphy of Staff United States tries to get the puck previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia in ladies’s ice hockey Group A play.
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Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States celebrates a objective within the third interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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See Staff USA ladies’s hockey dominate vs. Czechia at Winter Olympics
Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States celebrates scoring a objective previous Klara Peslarova of Staff Czechia within the third interval through the Girls’s Preliminary Spherical Group A match between america and Czechia.
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Hayley Scamurra of Staff United States celebrates after scoring a objective within the third interval towards Staff Czechia in ladies’s ice hockey Group A play.
Extra:
Six of these gamers shall be making their Olympic debut with one other 10 enjoying at their second Winter Video games.
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“The hole is closing, and I feel the function that the PWHL goes to play goes to be a giant one,” mentioned Kendall Coyne Schofield, one of many architects of the PWHL and a mainstay on the U.S. workforce.
“Particularly after this (Olympic) cycle, I feel you will begin seeing gamers come over right here and say, ‘I need to play with one of the best. I have to play with one of the best with the intention to be one of the best,’” Coyne Schofield mentioned. “Having all one of the best gamers below one roof is barely going to raise the sport in a manner that’s going to shut the hole amongst nations.”
It’s what has occurred in different sports activities.
The NWSL, WNBA and NCAA have fueled progress in soccer and basketball. Particular person gamers from nations the place the game is much less established go overseas and get higher, encouraging different gamers to make an identical transfer. That, in flip, lifts the extent of the nationwide workforce.
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Take Germany’s basketball workforce. It has despatched an rising variety of gamers to the WNBA and NCAA lately, together with the New York Liberty’s Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally, Satou Sabally of the Phoenix Mercury and the Dallas Wings’ Luisa Geiseloeder.
The Paris Olympics have been Germany’s first. It reached the quarterfinals.
The PWHL can have an identical affect. Already has, truly.
The Czech Republic didn’t qualify for the highest division on the world championships till 2012 and didn’t win a knockout spherical recreation till 2022. That yr, nevertheless, the Czechs gained the primary of two consecutive bronze medals at worlds. They’ve been fourth the final two years.
The distinction? Virtually half the gamers on the Czech roster are actually from both the PWHL or NCAA packages, together with Kristýna Kaltounková, the primary choose in final yr’s PWHL draft. Their coach since 2022 is Carla MacLeod, whose “day job” is coach of the PWHL’s Ottawa Cost.
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“They’ve put sources behind their program,” Coyne Schofield mentioned. “There isn’t any secret components right here. Give the gamers the instruments they must be profitable and they are going to be profitable. We’re ready to try this professionally. Now it’s replicating that internationally all through all of the federations and also you’ll see that hole shut. Actual fast.”
Finland and Sweden, which have 4 PWHL gamers every on their rosters, have additionally made strides, mentioned U.S. captain Hilary Knight, who helped discovered the league.
“It form of goes throughout the board,” Knight mentioned. “That is extraordinarily thrilling once you take a 30,000-foot viewpoint of girls’s hockey on the place it might go and the trajectory of the game and the way far it is are available only a small time that we have been concerned.”
Whereas different groups getting higher may imply the U.S. and Canada don’t dominate the best way they constantly have, gamers are greater than tremendous with that. They need ladies’s hockey to develop, and different nations getting higher makes your complete recreation higher.
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In addition to, regardless of how a lot the sport grows or what number of different groups turn into medal contenders, U.S.-Canada is at all times going to be THE rivalry. A bitter one, at that.
“They don’t like us very a lot,” Caroline Harvey, a two-time U.S. Olympian mentioned. “(We) don’t like them, both.”