Canada reclaimed the women’s world hockey championship with a measure of revenge.
After losing last year’s gold-medal game to the United States on home ice in Brampton, Ont., the Canadians turned the tables with Sunday’s 6-5 overtime victory over the U.S. in Utica, N.Y.
“Oh man, that feels good to win it on U.S. soil,” Canadian goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens said. “We owed it to them and owed it to ourselves to win that one.”
Danielle Serdachny scored the golden goal at 5:16 of overtime on a Canadian power play. The U.S. was caught with too many players on the ice in OT of a see-saw battle between women’s hockey heavyweights.
Serdachny scored Canada’s second power-play goal of the entire tournament with two seconds left in that penalty.
WATCH l Serdachny’s power-play goal in overtime powers Canada to gold medal:
Serdachny scores golden goal in OT as Canada beats the U.S. to win women’s hockey worlds
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Danielle Serdachny scored a power-play goal in overtime as Canada reclaimed the women’s world hockey championship from the United States with a 6-5 victory.
The 22-year-old from Edmonton backhanded a rebound off an Erin Ambrose shot by the pad of U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel.
“I’m still a bit in shock,” Serdachny said. “I just tried to take the goalie’s eyes away there and the rebound kind of popped right to me, so bit of a lucky one I’d say but just tried to get everything into it.
“When it was in the back of the net, I couldn’t believe it still.”
Canada’s captain Marie-Philip Poulin scored her first two goals of the tournament. She tied the game in the second period and gave her team a brief 5-4 lead in the third.
The 33-year-old missed three PWHL Montreal games heading into the international break and sat out Canada’s pre-tournament win over Finland with an undisclosed injury.
As Canadian head coach Troy Ryan gradually increased his captain’s minutes in the tournament, Poulin was a feisty, physical force getting under opposing players’ skins before getting on the scoresheet Sunday.
“Pou will always find a way to be a difference maker,” Ryan said. “The end of the preliminaries and in the semifinal, she impacted with a little bit of greasy play with physicality and just finding ways to impact the game.
“Tonight was just a whole other level. I could see in her eyes every time we called her name that she was ready to go. There’s very few athletes in the world that can perform in a pressure situation like she can.”
Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin, second from right, scored her first two goals of the tournament in the final. The 33-year-old sat out Canada’s pre-tournament win over Finland with an undisclosed injury. (Adrian Kraus/The Associated Press)
Ambrose, Emily Clark and Julia Gosling also scored for Canada.
Desbiens had 19 saves in a high-scoring game that contrasted starkly with Canada’s 1-0 loss in overtime to the U.S. in a Group A game earlier in the tournament.
No one Canadian player dominated the team’s offence with 17 different women scoring at least one goal.
Renata Fast was chosen the tournament’s top defender by the IIHF and was also named to the all-star team on defence.
Only Canada’s 7-5 win over the U.S. in 2015 was a higher scoring final among the 22 games the two countries have played.
The archrivals required overtime or a shootout to decide a gold medal for an eighth time in tournament history.
Caroline Harvey, Hilary Knight, Megan Keller, Alex Carpenter and tournament MVP Laila Edwards scored for the U.S. Frankel stopped 24 shots in the loss.
‘Extremely skilled game’
“Three on three [overtime] is an extremely skilled game. It opens up the ice a lot for different mistakes and unfortunately we made a mistake in the wrong time,” Knight said.
“I know we had two seconds on the clock with the kill and hats off to our penalty killers who have been absolutely outstanding all tournament. It really stings not to be able to get over the hump for this one.”
Canada won a 13th gold medal in 23 tournaments. The 2024 world championship was the first held in the era of the new Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Canada and the U.S. carried a combined 30 PWHL players on its rosters in Utica with the rest hailing from the NCAA.
While the gap between the North Americans and the rest of the field didn’t close much in Utica, the pace and speed of games between Canada and the U.S. kicked into a higher gear with more players in midseason form.
Players on both sides said their preliminary-round game was the fastest and hardest game of their lives, and that high-octane hockey continued Sunday with a gold medal on the line in front of a pro-U. S. sellout crowd of 4,142 at the Adirondack Bank Center.
“The longer you stick around, the rivalry just continues to develop,” said U.S. defender Megan Keller. “It’s fun to be a part of. A little more fun when you’re on the winning side.”
Finland edged the Czech Republic 3-2 in a shootout for the bronze medal. The 2025 women’s world championship will be held in Ceske Budejovice, the Czech Republic.
Canada roster
Forwards: Emily Clark, Saskatoon, Ottawa (PWHL); Sarah Fillier, Georgetown, Ont., Princeton (NCAA); Julia Gosling, London, Ont., St. Lawrence (NCAA); Brianne Jenner, Oakville, Ont., Ottawa (PWHL); Emma Maltais, Burlington, Ont., Toronto (PWHL); Sarah Nurse, Hamilton, Toronto (PWHL); Kristin O’Neill, Oakville, Montreal (PWHL); Marie-Philip Poulin, Beauceville, Que., Montreal (PWHL); Jamie Lee Rattray, Ottawa, Boston (PWHL); Danielle Serdachny, Edmonton, Colgate (NCAA); Natalie Spooner, Toronto, PWHPA; Laura Stacey, Kleinburg, Ont., Montreal (PWHL); Blayre Turnbull, Stellarton, N.S., Toronto (PWHL)
Defenders: Erin Ambrose, Keswick, Ont., Montreal (PWHL); Ashton Bell, Deloraine, Man., Ottawa (PWHL); Jaime Bourbonnais, Mississauga, Ont., New York (PWHL); Renata Fast, Burlington, Ont., Toronto (PWHL); Nicole Gosling, London, Ont., Clarkson (NCAA); Jocelyne Larocque, Ste. Anne, Man., Toronto (PWHL); Ella Shelton, Ingersoll, Ont., New York (PWHL)
Goaltenders: Kristen Campbell, Brandon, Man., Toronto (PWHL); Ann-Renee Desbiens, Clermont, Que., Montreal (PWHL); Emerance Maschmeyer, Bruderheim, Alta., Ottawa (PWHL); Corinne Schroeder, Elm Creek, Man., New York (PWHL)
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
