The women’s senior national ice hockey teams from Canada and the United States have met each other 195 times since an inaugural women’s tournament in Toronto held in 1987.
But what has marked the 49th Parallel Derby in women’s ice hockey is the fact that the two teams have met each other so many times in major championships.
The United States and Canada have finished 1-2 in almost every major world-level tournament since 1990. Canada has won five gold medals, 14 titles in the Four Nations’ Cup, and 13 IIHF World Championships. The Americans aren’t far behind, having won 12 World Championships, nine Four Nations’ Cups, and two Olympic gold medals.
When you look at a chart of the major tournaments, it is staggering just how many times Canada and the U.S. have finished 1-2. Only five times have the two teams not finished in the top two slots.
And it is guaranteed that the USA and Canada are going to be in the top two slots for the seventh straight time of asking, as the rivals will meet each other tomorrow afternoon for the Olympic title.
The United States and Canada have bolstered their lineups in the last few years because of the strength of various professional leagues in North America since 1999. Today, after an alphabet soup of leagues have come and gone over the years, there is now an eight-team Professional Women’s Hockey League that plays all over North America — four teams in the U.S., four in Canada.
As such, I was not expecting the USA-Canada rivalry to bend quite so sharply towards the Americans in the last year. Since April 13 of last year, the United States has won seven straight games against the Canadians, including a 5-0 win on February 10th during the opening round of the Olympics.
As such, I’m not so sure the U.S. can make it an eighth straight win tomorrow.
Why?
I remember 2002. The U.S. came into the Salt Lake City Olympics having won seven straight against their northern rivals, only to lose 3-2 in the gold-medal match.
While the United States has been absolutely brilliant in this competition, averaging more than five goals a game and spinning an Olympic-record shutout streak of 331 minutes and 23 seconds, you have to consider the opponent.
This is Canada. It’s a team which doesn’t defeat itself by coming into games with a defeatist attitude. They expect to win every time out, and, since senior-level competition began in the late 1980s, Canada has been the standardbearer for the game.
That’s why I’m not about to hand this result to the United States team.
Anything can happen.
And in this rivalry, it usually does.