Records broken as Canada beats USA for Olympic Gold

Sarah Nurse and Marie-Philip Poulin scored the goals, Ann Renee Desbiens stopped the shots.

Team Canada defeated Team USA 3-2 to win gold in Women’s Ice Hockey at the 2022 Olympics. Sarah Nurse opened the scoring, creating history in doing so, while Captain Clutch Marie-Philip Poulin scored two more, including the Golden Goal to return gold back to Canada. Ann-Renee Desbiens stopped 38 of 40 shots for the win for her first gold medal.

Poulin finished the night with three points, Nurse with two, with Brianne Jenner and Claire Thompson taking home an assist each. In terms of the tournament as a whole, all 20 skaters on the roster recorded a point.

Canada has now won Olympic gold in five out of the seven women’s hockey tournaments since 1998. They won four in a row from 2002 to 2014, lost in 2018, but they’re bringing it back home in 2022. This is the third straight gold medal game between Canada and the USA that has ended 3-2. And I’m not even bringing up all the World Championship games that end the same scoreline.

For the Americans, Hilary Knight scored in the second period and Amanda Kessel scored with 12.5 seconds left in regulation to make things interesting, but Canada came out in the end. Goalie Alex Cavallini allowed three goals on 21 shots in the loss, as Canada put on a lesson in beating score effects.

History Made

It was an historic night for Canada as multiple records got broken and remade.

Photo by Xavier Laine/Getty Images

First, Sarah Nurse is the name you should say when people ask who has the most points in a single Olympic tournament. 18 points in seven games, one better than Hayley Wickenheiser’s 17 points in five games.

Sarah Nurse is also the name you should say when they ask who the first Black woman to win a gold medal in hockey is.

Even though she’ll never do it, Marie-Philip Poulin is the only person who can say they’ve scored in four Olympic gold medal deciders. She has seven in those four games, by the way, in a record that won’t be broken for a long time.

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First Period

Right in the opening minutes of the game, Team USA almost got the lead. The Americans were buzzing around the Canadian’s net, with a loose puck ending up on the stick of Hannah Brandt. She fired the puck into the post just as Ann Renee Desbiens stretched to try and take it away. It initially looked like Desbiens made the save, but on a second look it bounced off the post and out.

If that puck had gone in, who knows what might’ve happened in this game.

1-0

Sarah Nurse opens the scoring with a deflection from Claire Thompson! What a beautiful, precise goal, and what an amazing reaction to open the scoring. Poulin got the secondary assist for one of her many faceoff wins.

2-0

Marie-Philip Poulin with the steal and score! Minutes after Nurse opened the scoring Captain Clutch stripped the puck from the American, circled back towards the top of the slot, and let off a shot that beat Cavallini. I’ll be honest, even though the goal deflected off the defender, it was still a pretty big muffin from Cavallini to give up.

Second Period

Sarah Fillier got a rush chance herself where she found Spooner heading to the far post. Spooner had to deflect the puck on her backhand — and she got enough to put it on net — but Cavallini made a boot save.

3-0

Poulin again from Jenner and Nurse! Erin Ambrose started the play by flipping the puck out of the zone towards a rushing Nurse. The left winger pressed into the offensive zone, stopping up to find Jenner heading to the net. She got stopped, but Poulin followed up and got the puck through a closing gap from basically the goal line.

3-1

Hilary Knight with a shorthanded goal on her own rebound brought the USA back into the hockey game. Canada had a set piece on the power play for Jenner at the side of the net, but the puck bounced around off the backboards and allowed Knight to go off on a counter attack with Brandt. Fillier did a great job tying up Brandt, but Knight forced Desbiens into giving up a rebound and buried the second attempt herself.

Third Period

Desbiens made two huge saves on Alex Carpenter early in the third period as the USA pushed to close the gap. Desbiens wasn’t perfect in this tournament, but she’s a gamer and she locked it down when it was her job.

Desbiens made another stop on Knight as she was charging down the middle of the ice on a rush chance started by Coyne-Schofield. Again, calm composure from Desbiens just as things started to get wild.

3-2

MPP took a tripping penalty with 90 seconds left in the game from a knee-on-knee hit. The Americans put on infinite amount of pressure, and despite several huge saves from Desbiens and blocks from the first PK unit, Amanda Kessel scored with 12.5 seconds remaining.

Time runs out, CANADA WINS!