Maddie Rooney reacts as Rebecca Johnston of Canada celebrates a goal by teammate Brianne Jenner on Dec. 3, 2017 in St. Paul, Minn.
The next time the U.S. and Canada women’s hockey teams meet there will much more on the line than there was in Sunday night’s pre-Olympic series finale at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.
Team USA played its eighth and final game against Canada in the lead-up to the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 and the score remained tied through regulation.
With just 30 seconds remaining in the five-minute, sudden-death overtime period, Jennifer Wakefield scored with an assist from Jennifer Spooner to give Canada a 2-1 victory. Hilary Knight scored the lone goal for the U.S., and goaltender Maddie Rooney made 13 saves in the loss.
Canada has now won the last four meetings against the U.S. and five of the eight in the two-month series.
Canada’s Marie-Philip Poulin scored on a power play late in the first period to give Canada a 1-0 lead. The score remained that way until Knight took a backhand pass from Kendall Coyne and scored on goaltender Shannon Szabados to tie it, 1-1, with six minutes left in the second period. Each team had to kill off a penalty in the first five minutes of the third. Canada took a delay of game penalty at 13:28 but the U.S. couldn’t capitalize on the advantage.
The U.S. closes out the series against their chief rivals with a 3-0-2-3-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L-T) record, including a pair of victories at the Four Nations Cup in November, during which Team USA went undefeated to win their third consecutive tournament title.
This was the 22nd game the U.S. played against Canada since losing in overtime in the gold-medal game at the 2014 Olympics including international games and exhibitions, with Team USA winning 12. The U.S. has beaten Canada at the women’s world championship every year since Sochi, including a 3-2 overtime win in April. Canada has claimed the gold medal in the last four Olympics, however, and this year the U.S. looks to win its first gold since 1998 when the sport was first included on the Olympic program.
Team USA will announce its 23-player Olympic roster on Jan. 1. The U.S. women open Olympic play against Finland on Feb. 11.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
