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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Canada’s Emily Clark, left, turns the puck away from American Laila Edwards during the third period of their preliminary round game at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. (Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
MILAN \u2014 As top-seeded Team USA practiced a day before its quarterfinal matchup against host Italy, the Canadians were on the nearby main rink reminding everyone it might not be time to count them out of the women\u2019s hockey Olympic tournament just yet.<\/p>\n
It was evident in the sound of Canada\u2019s goal song \u2014 Bachman-Turner Overdrive\u2019s \u201cYou Ain\u2019t Seen Nothin\u2019 Yet\u201d \u2014 consistently echoing through the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena complex during a 5-0 preliminary round-closing win over Finland on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The victory clinched the defending Olympic champions the second seed in Group A, and a quarterfinal meeting against Germany on Saturday.<\/p>\n
More significantly, it represented Canada\u2019s response to a 5-0 loss to the Americans on Tuesday, marking the women team\u2019s most lopsided loss and first time being shut out in Olympic play.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course we needed that. It felt good for all of us,\u201d forward Laura Stacey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed a good message to be sent, honestly to everybody, but more importantly ourselves,\u201d she added. \u201cI think we are a confident bunch. We know what we can do. Obviously, it wasn\u2019t our best game the other night. But this is the Olympics here, and we regrouped. We battled, and came back really strong today.\u201d![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2-13-8b-oly-women-hky-650x500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s on to the knockout round for the remaining eight-team field, and headed by the tournament-favored Americans, who swept all four games by a combined score of 20-1.<\/p>\n
The U.S. will play Italy today, the same day third-seeded Czechia will face Group B winner Sweden.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s quarterfinal outing is Saturday, along with Finland playing Switzerland in a matchup of Group A\u2019s fourth- and fifth-place finishers.<\/p>\n
U.S.-Italy<\/p>\n
The Americans get the easiest draw and face an Italian team making just its second Olympic appearance \u2014 both times as host \u2014 and finished 2-2 after going 0-4 at the 2006 Turin Games. Their roster is made up of numerous North Americans with Italian heritage, including leading scorer Kristin Della Rovere, who\u2019s from Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m beyond proud of our team and our girls,\u201d Della Rovere said of a team that clinched its berth with a 3-2 win over Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we\u2019re aware of who we\u2019re playing, arguably the best hockey team in the world,\u201d she said, referring to the U.S. \u201cWe\u2019re going to focus on what we can control and play Italian hockey and hope to put up a good fight here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Czechia-Sweden<\/p>\n
Czechia\u2019s third-place finish comes four years after making its tournament debut. The nation\u2019s program has been on the rise since. In four years under coach Carla MacLeod, the Czechs won consecutive bronze medals \u2014 the nation\u2019s first \u2014 at the 2022 and \u201923 world championships, and finished fourth in each of the past two.<\/p>\n
Czechia\u2019s roster features eight players from the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League \u2014 third-most among the competing nations.<\/p>\n
Sweden is trying to re-establish its women\u2019s hockey prominence 20 years after winning silver by upsetting the U.S. in the semifinals at Turin. <\/p>\n
Finland-Swiss<\/p>\n
Finland is 4-1 in Olympic play against Switzerland, including a 3-1 win Tuesday. Finland otherwise was shut out in its three other preliminary round games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we should compare the last game to what the next game will look like,\u201d Finland captain Michelle Karvinen said. \u201cIt\u2019s a quarterfinal, everything is on the line and it\u2019s going to be a totally different game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Switzerland finished the preliminary round with a shootout win over Czechia, and three losses.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP Olympic coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada’s Emily Clark, left, turns the puck away from American Laila Edwards during the third period of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[55520,5,87,1321],"class_list":["post-457406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-canada-set-for-olympic-women","tag-hockey","tag-national-sports","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116066365725721201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}