The USA women’s ice hockey women dramatically wrested the gold medal from their arch-rivals Canada in the eternal final duel and were crowned Olympic champions for the third time.
Veteran star Hilary Knight saved her team late into extra time in the heated and hard-fought final in Milan, in which Megan Keller scored the golden goal to make it 2-1 (0-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0).
Idol Knight (58th) canceled out the Canadians’ lead through Kristin O’Neill (21st) 124 seconds before the end. In overtime, both teams were close to scoring the winning goal before defender Keller scored against the Maple Leaves for the much-celebrated seventh win in a row.
The USA thus successfully took revenge for the lost final four years ago in Beijing (2:3). Team USA had previously triumphed at the premiere of the Olympic women’s tournament in Nagano in 1998 and in Pyeongchang in 2018.
The duel in Milan’s Arena Santagulia was the 30th final duel between these countries at the Olympics and World Championships. Only at the 2006 Olympics, when Canada won against Sweden, and at the 2019 World Cup, when the USA defeated the Finns in the final, was the duel for gold not Canada vs USA.
“We hate each other in the most respectful way”
At the same time, the great idols of their nations met for the last time at the Winter Games. It was the last Olympic game for the 36-year-old Knight, who proposed to her partner Brittany Bowe the day before the final. The 34-year-old left it open whether Marie-Philip Poulin, Canada’s record player with 27 appearances and the most successful goalscorer in Olympic history with 20 goals, would continue.
In the fifth direct duel for gold, Knight had the upper hand for the second time. Poulin, known as “Captain Clutch”, scored the winning goal in 2010, 2014 and 2022.
“There’s no second chance of something like this: we hate each other in the most respectful way,” Knight’s strike partner Laila Edwards said before the final. The USA appeared somewhat inhibited in front of US football icon Tom Brady. The Canadians, who had eliminated the German team 5-1 in the quarterfinals, were closer to scoring in the first third.
At the start of the middle section, he was outnumbered after a counterattack. It was the USA’s first goal conceded in over six hours, and Knight and Co. also managed a shutout in the 5-0 win against Canada in the preliminary round, in which Poulin was missing. The USA pushed vehemently in the final phase, Knight made a crucial deflection to equalize – her 15th Olympic goal, a US record.
Switzerland secured bronze with a 2-1 (0-0, 1-1, 0-0, 1-0 after extra time against Sweden. Alina Müller once again became the medal hero, scoring 51 seconds before the end of overtime.
The attacker, a teammate of Knight and the German Laura Kluge at Boston Fleet in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, had already scored the decisive goal against the Swedes in the game for third place in Sochi in 2014 at the age of 15.