USA defeats Canada for women’s hockey gold medal

The U.S. women’s hockey team celebrates after defeating Canada to win the gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Photo from usahockey.com

For the first time in 20 years, the U.S. women’s hockey team won Olympic gold in PyeongChang.

The gold medal match-up was a rematch of the previous two Olympic games with Team USA facing off against Team Canada. Team USA looked to finally defeat Canada after Canada’s victories in the 2014 and 2010 Olympics.

After winning two games and losing one in the preliminary round, Team USA shut out Team Finland in the semifinals by a score of 5-0. In the gold medal competition, Team USA tied the game in the third period and defeated Canada in a shootout. One of the shootout scorers for Team USA was Amanda Kessel, who some may recognize as the sister of Pittsburgh Penguins right winger Phil Kessel.

Finland defeated the Olympic Athletes from Russia to receive the bronze medal in this year’s Olympics. The U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team has medaled in all of its six Olympic appearances, but had not won the gold medal since its inaugural appearance in 1998.

While the U.S. women’s hockey team was successful at the 2018 Olympics, the men failed to medal for the second Olympics in a row. This year, Team USA fell to the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals with a 3-2 shootout loss.

The Olympic Athletes from Russia defeated Germany to win the gold medal, while Canada won the bronze medal after defeating the Czech Republic. 2018 marked the first year since 1998 that players from the National Hockey League were not permitted to participate in the Olympics.

Published By: Paige Parise

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