Olympic Games: Women’s Medal Matches Previews

The Gold-Silver Match

Finally the moment we all have waited for, the final of the Women’s hockey tournament. As expected, Canada take on the United States in a re-run of every Olympic and World Championship final of the sport’s history where Canada have won all but one Olympics, the USA have four World Cup wins in row to their name. The Group A match finished 2-1 to the Canadians a week ago. The question is will the USA take revenge or will it be business as usual with Canada taking gold?

Canada have taken the unusual tactic of taking all their players out of their regular teams and playing them together the whole season in the men’s hockey division, the Alberta Midgets Hockey League. Top scorer there have been centre Jennifer Wakefield and forward Meghan Agosta where they both have 11 points in c 15 games. After the Olympics Wakefield will return to Sweden where she has played almost all of her professional career, this time with Luleå HF in their push for the SDHL Championship. However it is Mélodie Daoust, the Montreal Canadieenes player that leads the team in scoring at the Olympics with 6 points including 3 goals in only four games.

The Americans have also opted for taking their players out of their regular season to train together in a marked contrast to the men’s game where the league has more power than the national teams. Top scorer for the team at the Olympics has been Dani Camarensi in her first Games with 5 points and 3 goals in four matches. She normally plays for the University of Minnesota in the top US women’s league, the NCAA. The 22 year old has an incredible 1.41 PPG in 143 matches in the league, twice coming fourth in the Total Points competition in 2015-6 and 2016-7. Their second placed top scorer is Joycelene Lamoureux-Davidson who also has outstanding statistics from her time at University of North Dakota in the NCAA with 1.91 PPG in 149 matches. She will desperately want to turn her Silver from Sochi to Gold in Korea. It remains to be seen if this American fire-power will be enough to take home their first Gold since the sport’s inaugural Games of 1998. Or will Wakefield and company continue to write Olympic History with red and white with a maple leaf motif?

The Bronze medal match

Finland will play against OA Russia as it was in the Group A match where the Finns won convincingly 5-1. Of course, the OA Russia team is not featuring 6 specifically named players banned for life by the IOC who featured in Sochi team than finished sixth. But even without them the women’s team will finish higher this time round. One player who scored in that Group A match and played in Sochi then aged only 16 is Anna Shokhina. The Tornado Dmitrov forward is the team’s top scorer who plays with the year of her birth on her shirt, #97. She has five points in just four games including three goals so far and lies in second place for Total Points in Women’s Russia hockey league this season.

The Russian was only just born as Finnish veteran and highest scorer, Riikka Välilä, was collecting a bronze medal at the Japan Winter Olympics. The 44 year old also scored in the teams’ Group A meeting and has the same amount of games and points as her younger rival, but has four goals and one assist. In her regular season the Finn lies ninth in the Total Points competition in the Swedish SDHL league with 40 points in 31 matches. In surely her last Olympics the HV71 captain will be looked to add a final Bronze to that she already holds from 20 years ago!

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