MILAN — Officially, 10 nations were in the women’s hockey tournament at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Yet only two have won the gold medal — and as a result, constantly circle one another every four years.
These Olympics are no different.
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On Thursday, once again, for the seventh time in eight Olympics since the sport made its debut in 1998, the gold-medal game comes down to the United States and Canada.
“I’m getting chills thinking about helping them get to what they want,” said U.S. coach John Wroblewski.
This will be the rivals’ 12th meeting at the Olympics, with Canada owning a 7-4 record all-time despite being outscored by two goals in the aggregate. Canada is 4-2 in gold-medal games against the U.S., with the Americans’ only victories coming in 1998 and 2018.
“It can go either way and the team knows that,” Canadian star Marie-Philip Poulin said. “We have what we need.”
Yet Canada will need more than it showed when these countries met nine days ago in a group-play game, the U.S. women dominated, 5-0. It was its seventh consecutive win against Canada in all competitions, although Poulin missed that game with an injury.
Afterward, Canadian coaches and players spoke of shaky confidence and missing focus. The Americans, meanwhile, betrayed little satisfaction; the undertone was unmistakable that they believed they would see Canada again in the knockout round.
“It’s the gold-medal game and they’ll show up,” U.S. forward Taylor Heise said.
Canada wasn’t the only opponent the U.S. has overwhelmed at these Olympics. The U.S. has scored 31 goals and allowed just one while out-shooting opponents 254-95. It last allowed a goal 331 minutes and 23 seconds ago, a record for either men’s or women’s hockey at the Olympics.
“Believe it or not, we have been challenged,” said U.S. defenseman Laila Edwards, one of 15 U.S. players to score a goal in the last six games. “We have just overcome it and succeeded. We will take what we can get and hopefully come out on top.”
Canada, meanwhile, has scored 13 more goals than it has allowed.
For as much as Thursday’s gold-medal game will end this tournament, it will also serve as a goodbye to one iconic player, and perhaps another.
Hilary Knight, 36, has said this will be her fifth and final Olympics representing the U.S. She has 14 goals all-time in Olympic competitions, and with one more will set the country’s record.
“There is nothing like it to play at this pace and this speed,” Knight said. “It is so much fun.”
“I sometimes just sit and watch her; she does everything right, and she’ll do anything for her teammates,” Heise said. “It’s sad to say that this might be her last one, and we’re going to hopefully win for her as well.”
For Canada, 34-year-old star Poulin will attempt to stop the U.S. yet again. She scored the winning goals in the 2010, 2014 and 2022 gold-medal games, and also scored both of Canada’s goals in its 2-1 semifinal win over Switzerland.
“I have played against (Knight) my whole career,” Poulin said. “It is always a battle. Both of us are hungry. We want it again.”
Said Knight: “You have two great players dueling it out on the world stage.
No player in Olympic history has scored more goals than Poulin’s 20.
Playing the U.S. is “very special,” Poulin said. “You mature a bit, you get a little bit older, but you never lose that feeling of winning.”
If Knight represents the old guard of the U.S., it has stormed to the verge of gold thanks to its next generation.
Three of the four players with the most points in this tournament are from the U.S. and playing in either their first or second Olympics. In her first Olympics, goaltender Aerin Frankel has set an Olympic record for most shutouts, with three.
Hannah Bilka, a 24-year-old from Texas in her Olympic debut, has scored a tournament-high four goals. Edwards has two goals and five assists. Caroline Harvey has seven assists and two goals for an Olympic-best nine points.
The U.S. has outscored its opponents by a tournament-high 14 goals with Harvey on the ice, a stunning turnaround from the 2022 Olympics, when Harvey played barely a minute during the gold-medal loss to Canada.
“There’ll be nerves. There’ll be excitement,” Harvey said. “There’ll be a lot of emotion in the building. So just staying level-headed and knowing what we got it in the room, what we got on our team, but we just got to take care of business.”
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