The US and Canada overcame slow starts against Nordic opponents yesterday to reach their ninth consecutive final at the IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship.
Canada, which has beaten the US in every final since the inaugural event in 1990, failed to score in the first period for the first time in the tournament before blanking Finland 3-0 behind two goals by Jayna Hefford.
Sweden led the other semifinal before the Americans rallied for a 4-1 victory. The host nation and Finland will play for the bronze medal before the title game.
PHOTO: AFP
The Americans scored three goals in the second period to take control. Kelly Stephens tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 2:38, Katie King made it 2-1 at 16:38 and Molly Engstrom added another power-play goal at 18:27. Natalie Darwitz scored early in n the last periond.
"It was expected, but they [Sweden and Finland] battled hard today ... we'll battle it out tomorrow" Angela Ruggiero said.
Canada has only lost one game in championship history and that came last year when the US won a round-robin game 3-1 at Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Therese Sjolander scored Sweden's goal with just 51 seconds left of the first period with the Americans shorthanded.
Hayley Wickenheiser, who played men's third-division hockey in Finland last year, also scored for Canada. It was Wickenheiser's 98th goal in international hockey.
Canada outscored its first four opponents 38-0 -- the first time in championship history a team has not conceded a single goal on its way to the gold-medal game.
"We're a confident team, but they definitely gave us a challenge today," Hefford said.
With another title, Canada will match a record for consecutive world hockey championships won by a country. The former Soviet Union men's team won every crown from 1963 to 1971.
Charline Labonte earned the shutout for Canada, stopping all 16 shots she faced. Head coach Melody Davidson will decide whether to start Labonte or Kim St. Pierre in the final. Each goalie has played two games in the championship.
Finland, a bronze medalist in all but one of the previous worlds, held Canada goalless for in the opening period by staying out of the penalty box and defending their goalie Annakaisa Piiroinen, who had 38 saves in the game. But they didn't create many dangerous scoring chances.
Wickenheiser scored a fluke goal at 3:17 in the second period, her hard shot off the boards bouncing back towards Piiroinen and deflecting off the goalie's skates and into the net. Danielle Goyette got an assist.
Hefford, named Canada's most valuable player in the game, made it 2-0 just 47 seconds later when she beat Piiroinen with a low shot to the glove side.
In games for fifth to eighth places, China shut out Kazakhstan 3-0 and Germany beat Russia 2-1 at Norrkoping.
Dynamo Moscow were crowned Russian champions after beating Lada Togliatti 3-1 in a penalty shootout on Friday to clinch the championship playoff.
Dynamo won thanks to goaltender Vitaly Yeremeyev who saved three penalties and kept out dozens of goal attempts during the match, which finished 1-1 at the end of regulation time.
Alexander Chupin scored six minutes into the first quarter before Lada's Ilya Vorobyov equalised after 18 minutes.
This year's championship has enjoyed a higher profile than usual because the NHL lockout has seen many Russian players who ply their trade in the US turning out for clubs at home.
Canadian hockey player Chad Hinz was arrested at a Stockholm airport Friday on charges of drunk driving.
Hinz, one of the star players for Swedish club Skelleftea this past season, failed a breath test in northern Sweden on March 26.
Police at Arlanda airport arrested Hinz before he could board a flight, police spokesman Kjell Pettersson said.
The warrant was issued to keep Hinz, who was not legally barred from leaving the country, in Sweden during the investigation.
If convicted, he could face up to two years in jail.
Skelleftea is located about 750km north of Stockholm. The club declined to comment on the arrest, but was scheduled to hold a press conference later Friday about Hinz's future with the club.
Skelleftea played in Sweden's second-highest league this season and is third of six teams vying for two spots in next season's Elite League.
Hinz, a seventh-round draft pick for the Edmonton Oilers in 1997, has played nine seasons in the American Hockey League and Western Hockey League, mainly with the Moose Jaw Warriors and Hamilton Bulldogs. He spent last season with the AHL's Toronto Roadrunners.
NHL blues continue
After months of heated discussions with the players' association, NHL general managers ended two days of meetings bickering among themselves.
The six-hour, closed-door session between the GMs on Friday dealt with how to handle a draft that follows a season that never was, and who deserves a shot at Canadian top pick Sidney Crosby.
"The temperature got high very quickly," New York Islanders GM Mike Milbury said, describing the brief but "heated debate" that he believes will be settled by commissioner Gary Bettman and the league's board of governors, which meets on April 20.
One of the proposals under consideration involves having all 30 teams enter a lottery for the first pick, an idea none too popular among teams that finished the 2003-2004 season at the bottom of the standings.
"It certainly has the tendency to be a difficult issue," NHL executive vice president Bill Daly said following the meeting at an airport hotel near Detroit.
Usually, the draft order is set based on the previous season's standings, but that is not possible this year.
Washington won last year's draft lottery, after finishing with the league's second-worst record, and grabbed Russian sensation Alexander Ovechkin with the No. 1 pick.
College basketballer Kaitlyn Chen has become the first female player of Taiwanese descent to be drafted by a WNBA team, after the Golden State Valkyries selected her in the third and final round of the league’s draft on Monday. Chen, a point guard who played her first three seasons in college for Princeton University, transferred to the University of Connecticut (UConn) for her final season, which culminated in a national championship earlier this month. While at Princeton, Chen was named the Ivy League tournament’s most outstanding player three times from 2022 to last year. Prior to the draft, ESPN described Chen as
College basketballer Kaitlyn Chen (陳凱玲) has become the first player of Taiwanese descent to be drafted by a WNBA team, after being selected by the Golden State Valkyries in the third and final round of the league's draft yesterday. Chen, a point guard who played her first three seasons in college for Princeton University, transferred to the University of Connecticut (UConn) for her final season, which culminated in a national championship on April 6. While at Princeton, Chen was named the Ivy League tournament's most outstanding player three times from 2022 to last year. Prior to the draft, ESPN described Chen as a
Japan yesterday secured a second consecutive Billie Jean King Cup finals appearance with a 2-1 win over 2023 champions Canada, thanks to Ena Shibahara and Shuko Aoyama’s 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 win over Kayla Cross and Rebecca Marino in the qualifying doubles decider. Shibahara and Aoyama powered through the opening set 6-3, breaking twice for a quick 3-0 lead. Cross and Marino hit back in the second, edging it 7-5 to level the match, before the Japanese pair regained control in the third. Canada’s 18-year-old Victoria Mboko edged Shibahara 6-4, 6-7 (8/10), 7-5 in a marathon opening clash. Mboko fired eight aces to
DAY OF BLOWOUTS: Elsewhere, the Lakers clinched the third seed in the Western Conference with a 140-109 pounding of the under-strength Houston Rockets The Denver Nuggets on Friday improved their playoff position, with a triple double from Nikola Jokic helping them to a 117-109 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. The Serbian put up 26 points, 13 assists and 16 rebounds. The triple-double performance, his 34th this season, ensured that he will finish the regular season as just the third NBA player to average a triple double across an entire season. The win meant the Nuggets improved to 49-32 on the season and gave them a real chance of grabbing fourth place and home-court advantage in the playoffs. Aaron Gordon top scored with 33 points for Denver,
RSS