Golden Opportunity

It's been more than two years since the top women's hockey teams in the world squared off with a championship in the balance. Tuesday returns women's hockey to its international equilibrium with a long-awaited gold-medal game at the IIHF Women's World Championship in Calgary.
Following its 3-0 win over Finland Monday afternoon, Team USA will be skating in Tuesday's gold-medal matchup. The opponent is a familiar foe, Canada, which shut out Switzerland, 4-0, in the second semifinal Monday. The Canadians dominated the Swiss with 65 shots on goal.

Canada is undefeated in this tournament so far and totally outplayed the No. 1-ranked Americans in the preliminary round-robin phase, winning 5-1 last Thursday without its best player and captain Marie-Philip Poulin.
Poulin recovered to play in Canada's quarterfinal 7-0 win over Germany. That's 21 goals for and one against in the last four contests for the Canadians.
The USA win over Finland was tighter than the final score. The first period was scoreless despite a 13-4 shots on goal advantage for the Americans. Two second-period goals provided breathing room but it took a late third-period empty net goal to extinguish any doubt.

No doubt avid women's hockey fans remember that Finland defeated Canada at the 2019 IIHF Worlds, then fell to Team USA, 2-1, but only after a shootout-and a disallowed Finnish goal in overtime.
Team USA will not be forgetting its dismal performance last Thursday when the puck drops Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. PT (NHL Network, TSN). The win was the first since 2013 for Canada against U.S. in World Championship play but the resounding 5-1 margin of victory is hard to ignore.

American forward Hillary Knight broke the all-time women's worlds goal record during the preliminary round. Her 45th all-time score is one more than previous record holder and Kraken pro scout Cammi Granato.
When Team USA rebounded from the Canada loss with a 10-2 quarterfinal win over Japan, Knight scored two more goals and notched an assist to pass Granato on the American all-time women's points list in women's world championship play.
Knight, 32, is of course a player to watch on the U.S. side. But fans tuning in should also mark 22-year-old Grace Zumwinkle, a University of Minnesota star playing in her first, but far from last, World Championship tournament. She has four goals and two assists to date and has teammates and opponents alike talking about her hard shot and instincts to drive to the net.
Canada's Melodie Daoust has been a standout on a strong squad. Despite playing the third-least number of minutes among Canadian forwards, Daoust leads all players in the tournament with 10 points (4 G, 6A). Her line with Natalie Spooner and Sarah Fillier has notched 24 points overall.
It all makes for fun and significant live hockey in August (coming in under the wire). Whoever wins gold Tuesday night at WinSport Arena in Calgary also gets an extra boost and reward as both teams will soon commence getting ready the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing less than six months away.