One of international sports’ fiercest and longest-running grudge matches will play out for the second time at the Beijing Olympics, with the meeting Thursday between the United States and Canada determining who goes home with gold.
“These are the the games that we live for,” U.S. captain Kendall Coyne Schofield said following a 4-1 semifinal win over Finland. “Everyone’s been so resilient through the pandemic with the ups and downs, the cancellations, postponements and finding ways to train, and it’s for this moment. We’re going to empty the tanks, and this is what we came here to do.”
Overall at the Olympics, which added women’s hockey in 1988, Canada is 6-3 against the U.S., with four gold medals to the Americans’ two.“In all honesty, it was very anti-climactic for us to lose in a shootout, because it didn’t feel as if you lost a game,” said Canada forward Sarah Nurse, who leads the tournament with 16 points on four goals and 12 assists. “It almost felt like unfinished business.
The game Thursday will mark the fourth time that the U.S. and Canada will have met twice in the same Olympic tournament. In the first two instances, the Americans and Canadians won both times. In 2018, the U.S. won the title after a 2-1 loss to Canada in group play., quick-strike transition attack, which scored five times in a first-period span of 3:24 against Switzerland to set an Olympic record for the fastest five goals.
U.S. coach Joel Johnson believes his team can compete, in part because it has yet to play its best game. The Americans won’t go into detail, but they have a few grudges to settle. It’s evident when U.S. players reference the two nations’ nine-game pre-Olympic Rivalry Series being abruptly canceled with three game left because of Canada’s COVID-19 concerns.
This is not how the Americans handled things, having no issue playing — and beating the Russians 5-0 — a day after an ROC player tested positive.
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