2021 World Championships

[Lindsay]

(No, I didn't see it)

Three goals on eleven shots.... not exactly Desbiens' finest hour!

yea they weren’t terrible goals or anything, but obviously need to find a way to make those saves.

Cavallini faced a similar challenge against Switzerland facing only a few shots but some quality chances. I think her shutout made her one of the stars of the game in my eyes.

The other play of the game for me, from USA SUI was Decker absolutely schooling Mueller on an o zone face off, winning it forward to herself, then passing across to Coyne for the goal. Such a nice play, and against 2 of the best players in the world in Mueller and Braendli.

unfortunately Mueller got hurt in the game vs Russia yesterday. Hope she is back for future games but not sure of her status.

today:
Canada vs Russia at 6 pm eastern Sunday
USA vs Finland at 9:30 eastern Sunday

[Lindsay]

Caroline Harvey, WOW! ... I see a Patty Kaz in her future.

do they give that award to defenders? ;-) Just kidding, ya she was really fun to watch, similar to Fillier seems surprisingly physically strong for such a young athlete.

[robertearle]

The other play of the game for me, from USA SUI was Decker absolutely schooling Mueller on an o zone face off, winning it forward to herself, then passing across to Coyne for the goal. Such a nice play, and against 2 of the best players in the world in Mueller and Braendli.

Players often give us moments fixed in our memories. Your description of Decker brought this one to mind. (I'll have to find video of the one you describe; did it look like this :-) ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jIoir_MifA

[Lindsay]

Players often give us moments fixed in our memories. Your description of Decker brought this one to mind. (I'll have to find video of the one you describe; did it look like this :-) ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jIoir_MifA

Haha, yes! Similar for sure.


https://twitter.com/usahockey/status...828595200?s=20

[D2D]

Another solid 3-0 shutout win over Finland this evening. Grace Zumwinkle scores first for the Americans and is named their Player of the Game. Kelly Pannek and Hillary Knight with the other two goals.

[Lindsay]

Enjoyed watching the games last night. Some thoughts:

1- we really need a North American based viable pro league. The shot disparities in these games are absurd. 62 to 7 last night for Canada. 40 to 10 or something like that for US over Finland. I love the international game but I hope the USA Hockey and Hockey Canada higher ups are watching this, and thinking about all the great Canadian and US players who have nowhere to play and could give similar or better competition to the Canadian and US national teams.

2- I love watching Fillier skate the puck end to end. She got another goal in Canada’s 5-1 win.

3- Clark is having a nice tourney as a 3rd line winger. Drew a key penalty to get Canada to a 4 on 4 situation that set the table for Fillier’s goal. Assisted another goal later in the game. Nurse has been converted to a 4 line center. Rattray remains the extra forward. No change in lines yet for Canada this tourney. After winning the player of the game award in game
1 and being a plus 4 that game, Rattray got about 5 minutes of ice time last night.

4- Ambrose and Thompson are a fun d pair. Both finished plus 3 yesterday, a team high.

5- Desbiens still hasn’t had the game she wants to have probably, giving up a goal with 1.7 seconds left. Have to think Maschmeyer will get a look at some point.

6 - jersey game is strong on Team Canada , they went with their Sunday best - the red OSU looking ones, can’t wait to see what they wear next.

[Cornholio]

Good insights Lindsay but I will play devil's advocate here and say that the current investments the US and Canada make in their women's team over the other national teams to cause such a disparity in play may result in the demise of women's hockey as an Olympic sport. No other national teams that I am aware of "centralize" their entire roster a full year before the Olympics. Most of these teams cannot afford that and as a result get a few weeks of camps together throughout the year and that is about it. None of the other teams that I am aware of "pay a living wage" to their national teams. What is the result? Not only do the US and Canada have a much larger natural talent pool to pull from, but they also now train much longer. This really helps widen the gap between the NA programs and the rest of the world. Women's hockey has been an Olympic sport now since 1996 and it still basically boils down to the US and Canada for gold/silver; rest of the world compete for bronze. Anything can happen in any given game (ala Sweden in 2006, Finland last worlds) but unless there is more parity, I fear for the future of the sport. It is much more likely the rest of the world will go the route of Sweden and pull all investment since it simply cannot compete with the NA programs.

If you look at the rest of group A, the group B teams would be much more competitive with Russia, Switzerland and Finland then those 3 are with the NA teams. Given how the seeding works, it will be near impossible for anyone in group B to ever reach group A (the top group B teams never have a chance to play the bottom group A teams - group A 4-5 play each other while group A 3 plays group B 1, etc.). This is even more of a disincentive of the national programs to investment in their women's hockey team.

I know most of us feel like we don't invest enough in our women's teams (US side especially..) but compared to the rest of the world, it is a significantly higher than what they can do or afford. A viable pro league that all the top players in the world could play in would help, but financially that needs to stand on its own (as discussed in prior threads...)

[ARM]

Over the years, the possibility of women's hockey losing its place in the Olympic program due to lack of competition has been discussed a number of times. People have pointed to the demise of baseball & softball as an example. The problem doesn't seem to be one country investing more heavily in a sport and dominating the competition (think China identifying divers at about the age that they can walk or Russia in artistic swimming).

When European countries don't participate in a given sport, then it has a harder time gaining a foothold. Baseball and softball require their own unique facilities, and for an Olympics in Paris, there isn't much need for those fields after the Games. These seem to be global sports, but not in Europe, so they struggle more than sports that are popular on that continent.

If men's hockey isn't going away, then the facilities for women's hockey aren't single-purpose, and they can also double at least as practice rinks for figure skating and/or short-track speedskating. There aren't that many true team sports in the Winter Olympics. Curling. Bobsled. Most of the others are taking an individual sport like skiing and constructing a team competition out of it. So women's hockey provides a nice made-for-TV type of event in a way that some winter sports do not.

Yes, it would be nice if women's hockey made gains in other countries. However, I think that the scores of games are less one-sided now than they once were. This is due in part to not having Canada and the US play the lower-tier teams with the current Olympic format.

[Lindsay]

Off work today for my kids first school day, and it works out I get to watch a 2 pm USA RUssia game.

1- big flex by USA to take players in and out of their roster last game, and play Hensley rather than Cavallini. It would be amazing if we saw Frankel today. Buchbinder hasn’t played yet, beleive she is injured.

2- The Zumwinkle scouting report by ARM is accurate, no surprise there. Her game has transitioned to the senior int’l level, 2 goals so far this tourney.

3- Zumwinkle Scamurra Cameranesi is most fun line to watch so far for me. New and productive. Obviously Knight, Decker, Coyne
are great but we are used to seeing them.

4- There’s always rumblings around Knight. I read takes both positive and negative about her play so far. What I love about her game is how she always comes through in the end. She got shut down on 2 glorious chances last game, didn’t get rattled and scored a classic Knight goal in front of the net, outmuscling a defender and banging home a rebound, to ice the game 3-0. With that goal she tied the world championship record set by Cammi Granato, with 44. Does she break record today?

5- looking Forward to seeing the line up and game
today!

5.1 - Roque doing a nice job centering the 4th line. I think she could handle being a winger higher up the depth chart but someone has to be 4th line center and shes had a few beautiful feeds to people.... someone will hammer one home soon.

[Lindsay]

Whew so first I cried putting my kid on the bus for the first time in 17 months, then at lunch my preschooler had his first day of school ever (sniffle) and now the intermission photo montage of Hilary Knight with all the little girl hockey players she’s inspired got me. Montage ended with a pic of young Britta Curl holding Knights stick. What a day. Knight broke the record, 45 goals, assisted by Decker, who broke a record on same goal - all time US assist leader at worlds with 39.

Britta Curl also got her first goal today, and set the scene for the montage ending photo. Tessa B and Carla MacLeod crushing it on the intermission. Just loving it....next challenge for TSN is to round up some footage of old Knight world championship goals and give us a reel. :-)

Third period upcoming. 3-0 US.

[D2D]

Highlights
https://youtu.be/sJucAQab_pw

[Lindsay]

Waiting for some more coverage from the big outlets in advance of the US Canada game... stuck with my observations in the meantime, haha.

1- Canada dismantled Switzerland 5-0 yesterday. Maschmeyer with the shutout on 12 shots including a breakaway. Emily Clark with a short handed game winner after she banged home a Turnbull shot on the rebound. What a great tourney for her; she was invisible in the Calgary PW event.

2- scary moment in the third watching Poulin take a slap shot to the chest. She left the game but Kingsbury said she is ok, post game. I have not witnessed a lot of scary plays live; that was unsettling and I’m so glad she’s ok.

3- still no power play or first period goals for Canada in the tourney.

4 - worth tuning in for college fans just to watch Fillier. Alongside the excellent Spooner and Daoust, that second line is like a first line. At one point Fillier and Poulin were on Pp together, even though no goal on pp yet, they just looked great together. The play that Poulin got hurt on Fillier and Poulin were out there defending a 5 on 3 pp. Fillier seems to do it all. That line got 3 goals yesterday (2 for Spoomer and 1 for Daoust).

5 - Jenner sat this game out and Rattray was first line. Jenner should be fresh for USA game. O’Neill made her debut and had some solid shifts as well.

6- similar to our convo the other day, not only can the other countries not get shots against Canada and US, the physicality of the programs are also on different levels from the rest. Seeing this interpreted as playing cheap by some...I don’t know if I agree with that but certainly US and especially Canada play very close to the line of what is a penalty and what isn’t.

7- Bourbonnais scored her first of the tourney yesterday and in her intermission interview with Bonhomme I learned she wears 25 (for Canada, not sure about Cornell), just like a player she looked up to... Tessa Bonhomme. Great stuff.

[Lindsay]

https://www.theicegarden.com/platfor...mpression=true

from the Ice Garden on Knights history making goal, and Deckers history making assist

[Lindsay]

Big game at 6 pm tonight. Canada has said Poulin will not play, out of an abundance of caution.

want to share two podcasts if you are looking for women’s worlds commentary:

Erica Ayala of Locked on Kraken (has lots of quotes from Joel Johnson, also Knight amd
Decker):

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...n/id1572857724

second is me! Amateur production but hope I have some semblance of knowing what I’m talking about. :-) As you know I love talking hockey and don’t think there’s enough on the women’s side so can’t help but jump in. Hope more passionate women’s hockey fans continue to join the online fandom in someway as I love hearing/reading what others think. My pod is Unapologetically a bit mom focused... I feel mommy hockey podcasts are also underrepresented, lol. Thanks for always being a welcoming community here...I appreciate that there is somewhere to chat women’s hockey and this place is the best.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...t/id1572763069

So awesome this day has finally arrived, predictions anyone?

[D2D]

So awesome this day has finally arrived, predictions anyone?

I'll go with the USA, 3-1 with an empty netter.