The U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team earned the silver medal at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games after a 3-2 loss to Canada in the gold medal game today at the Wukesong Sports Center in Beijing.
“It’s disappointing,” said Team USA coach Joel Johnson (St. Thomas) in a statement. “We weren’t able to score in the first period and that catches up to you, especially when we got down by three. It’s difficult to take when I thought, overall, we played pretty well and generated some good offense. We’ve had good goaltending and good defense all tournament, but never was able to be better than Canada, so I give them credit. They were better this tournament and we’re disappointed.”
Hilary Knight (Wisconsin) scored a short-handed goal with 3:21 to play in the second period and Amanda Kessel (Minnesota) brought the U.S. to within a goal with an extra-attacker tally with 12.5 seconds left in the third period.
The U.S. outshot Canada 40-21 with goalie Alex Cavallini (Wisconsin) making 18 saves in the loss.
After her appearance in today’s game, Knight now owns the record for the most Olympic games played in U.S. women’s hockey history with 22 Olympic appearances.
For Canada, Marie-Philip Poulin (Boston University) scored twice with an assist while Sarah Nurse (Wisconsin) had a goal and an assist to back 38 saves in goal from Ann-Renée Desbiens (Wisconsin).
“I am so proud of the work everyone has put in,” Canada coach Troy Ryan said. “A lot of times people just see the finished product, they see the gold medal and everyone getting to celebrate. What they might not see is the ups and downs that happen in a season. Seeing [our athletes] celebrate gave me a chance to reflect on everything that has been thrown at them and what has happened this year. It has been impressive to watch, and all along I had the sense that good things were happening. All I wanted was for us to finish the way we wanted to and for our girls to get what they deserved.
“When it was all over, there was a bit of a sense of relief, but so much pride.”
