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Marie-Philip Poulin of Team Canada, centre, celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal in the third period against Germany at the Milano Cortina Olympics in Milan, Italy, on Saturday.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
As they stepped off the ice Saturday, Canada’s Olympic women’s hockey players sounded more like they were lamenting a loss than celebrating a win.
They had just dusted Germany 5-1 in the quarter-final, but the game was less tidy than it looked on paper, head coach Troy Ryan said.
For veteran defender Renata Fast, the key words facing the team right now are “clean up.” As in, Canada’s playing some messy hockey in Milan, and it’s only got so much time left to mop up its mistakes.
“We’re taking it day by day in this tournament,” Fast said after the win against Germany. “We still have some areas we still need to clean up.”
Asked to elaborate, Fast went on.
“It’s just our puck management a little bit, just being harder on our plays, and recognizing when we don’t have the advantage and we might need to just get a puck low versus try to make a play.”
The normally poised Canadians have been a bit out of sorts at these Olympics. Their tournament was turned upside down when captain Marie-Philip Poulin, widely considered the best player in women’s hockey, went down with an injury in their second game.
Any weaknesses in their veteran-heavy lineup were laid bare soon after, when they were dismantled 5-0 by a younger, faster, hungrier American team.
Heading into the semi-finals Monday and, presumably, a gold-medal rematch later against the Americans, Canada has limited time to get things right. It’s something the players and their coach were acutely aware of when they stepped off the ice Saturday.
Ryan said he feared the team was playing down to its opponents rather than keeping the pace and execution displayed by the Americans in focus.
Women’s hockey has almost always come down to a showdown between those two teams for gold at the Olympics, but Ryan has been frustrated by mistakes the team has made during wins against Germany, Czechia, Finland and Switzerland.
The coach said he wants the team to speed up its game, since the loss to the U.S. in the seeding round showed how quick a rematch will be, if there is one.
“I find in these events where you’re playing against different types of opponents … just because you have time to make a play, it doesn’t mean you’ve always got to use it,” Ryan said.
“You’ve got to get into the habit of making quick plays, quick decisions, so you’re not playing to your opponent.”
Heading into the tournament’s penultimate round, facing Switzerland in the semi-final on Monday, Ryan expects the games will get faster now.
“On the penalty kill, we’ll just take extra time that is not going to be there in the semis, or not going to be there in a gold-medal game,” Ryan said.
“Those are just habits that creep into your game sometimes based on the opponent, and we’ve just got to get away from it.”
Team Canada has talked about managing its aggressiveness on plays. Against the U.S., for example, the Americans scored a wide-open goal when two Canadian defenders jumped on the puck carrier in the corner, leaving the goalscorer unchallenged in front of the net.
“If we’re aggressive, great,” Ryan said. “But you can’t have one, two, or three people being aggressive on plays. You got to have people that are anticipating the next play.”
In choosing the roster for Milan, Team Canada leaned heavily on veteran experience from the gold-medal team in 2022 and other Olympic iterations. Against a U.S. team that looked faster and more youthful in their first meeting, Canada will have to draw upon the intangibles of its leadership core to counter that attack.
Canada’s leaders – from Poulin and veteran Natalie Spooner, to Sarah Nurse, Jocelyne Larocque and others – have all seen big moments before. What they can divine from that experience will be the question.
“I think it’s going to be important,” said Spooner, who is playing in her fourth Olympics. “In those big moments, to have composure, to play the game the right way.”
The return of Poulin, after missing two games including the loss to the U.S. with an injury, helps change the complexion of the team, defender Claire Thompson said.
Poulin, playing in her fifth Olympics, has a presence on the bench and in the room that’s hard to quantify, she said.
“She’s so talented, so good,” Thompson said. “Every time you step on the ice with her, you just try to be the best version of yourself because you watch the best player in the world doing the little things right.”
On paper, Canada’s path at these Olympics doesn’t look that concerning, having won four games and losing just one. But the blowout loss to the Americans and the mistakes in wins against lesser opponents have it concerned.
Spooner said she’s looking forward to playing in a more rowdy atmosphere as the women’s tournament shifts from the smaller Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, which seats about 6,000, to the larger Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which seats double that amount, for the semi-finals and final.
The team got a taste of the bigger arena when it played the Americans there during the seeding round.
“I think we’re excited to get in that big rink and get more fans in the building,” Spooner said.
“The ice at Santagiulia is a lot nicer, a lot smoother, a lot better,” Spooner added. “The puck definitely gets bouncing out here [at Milano Rho]. But it’s the same for every team, so you’ve just got to play.”
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