Canada coach has no time for ‘shoulder drops,’ but women’s team insists they’ll be better next time
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Chris Jones reports from Milan.
Women’s hockey arrived on the big stage at Milano Santagiulia on Tuesday night, when Canada and the U.S. renewed their endless rivalry. After a 5-0 win for the increasingly dominant Americans, after the arena fell silent long before it should have, their meetings have started to feel more hopeless than heated.
“You try to decipher why a game like that happens,” head coach Troy Ryan said after. “We don’t expect any of this to be easy. We just have to make sure we’re much better than we were tonight.”
Marie-Philip Poulin, Canada’s captain, did not play after being injured in Monday’s distant-seeming win over Czechia. But even her mighty presence would have done little to change a miserable outcome, the latest in an unbroken string of Canadian defeats.
The Americans won 4-3 in overtime at last year’s world championships. They went on to take all four games of November’s and December’s Rivalry Series by a combined score of 24-7.
Hannah Bilka had a pair of goals leading the Americans to a 5-0 shutout of Canada, on Tuesday at Milano-Cortina 2026.
They’ve now swept their slate of preliminary games in Milan, against the top-seeded teams, by a combined score of 20-1. They are young, fast, physical, and fully weaponized. Each time they’ve played the Canadians lately, it feels as though they’ve just remembered another slight to avenge.
“I wasn’t expecting that from our group, honestly,” Canadian forward Julia Gosling said. “I guess the pressure kind of got to us a little. Next time around we’re going to be confident and really take it to them.”
As naïve as Gosling’s optimism sounded, there is, perhaps, one reason for it — the same sliver of hope offered to any team that makes up its mind to find it.
When Italy beat Japan to make a shocking advance to the elimination round, Eric Bouchard, Italy’s Canadian head coach, said that his team “wanted it more.” It’s a cliché, and the Japanese, many of them in tears, would have no doubt disagreed.
Canada’s captain was ruled out of the game due to a lower body injury sustained against Czechia.
But in that moment of unexpected celebration, Bouchard’s assessment felt true. The Japanese probably should have won; they outshot the Italians 15-4 in the second period alone. Italy’s only counter was a special strain of determination: Their love for each other had more ferocity.
After the Czechia game, Ryan, a calm and considered person, said something telling. He was asked about the line between physical and dangerous play and whether Czechia had gone over it.
“They’re going to cross it at times,” he said. “And to be honest, at times, I’m completely OK with our team crossing it as well. I think sometimes you’ve got to play the game hard, and you’ve got to play it mean.”
You’re at the Olympic Games … you gotta either have success in those games or you gotta learn.– Canada coach Troy Ryan
He wasn’t purple when he said that. He wasn’t shouting. He was a man who understands with perfect clarity that his team’s only chance against the Americans is a change of mood. He was giving his players permission to show up for each other in a more blistering way.
“I think the big message for me was that there just seemed to be a bit of a shoulder drop,” he said after the U.S. defeat, wishing this time for his audience to listen better. “The group got down a little bit. Honestly, I have no time for it. You’re at the Olympic Games … you gotta either have success in those games or you gotta learn.”
Beyond anything else, hockey is a sport of skill, speed, and opportunity. That’s why talented teams win more than they lose, and that’s why the Americans beat the Canadians again. They were better at everything.
But hockey is also a game that tends to get messy, especially under pressure, and that’s when courage, passion, and belief find their place to matter.
Maybe that confidence will re-emerge organically, if Poulin, listed as day-to-day, returns in time to inspire.
It’s more likely to happen if the rest of Canada’s women decide they’re not going to watch each other get embarrassed anymore.
“I think we’re as hungry as it gets,” said Brianne Jenner, named captain in Poulin’s absence.
That had better not be true.
This remains, even if it looks just now like a one-team tournament, a competition between two. Canada will no doubt meet the U.S. again in the gold medal game on Feb. 19.
And while the Americans have never been heavier favourites, Canada won’t necessarily be the underdog. Canada is never an underdog in women’s hockey. It won’t be a surprise if this team comes back to win gold. It won’t be anything like a miracle.
It will be because one group of women chose to express their love for each other in a way that another group of women could not.
It will be because Canada’s women chose to win.
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