🇺🇸 United States 1-0 Canada 🇨🇦 (SO)
Women’s World Championship Gold Medal Game
Cloetta Center, Linköping 🇸🇪
Saturday, 09 April 2005

Few team sports have been dominated so emphatically by one country as women’s hockey by Canada. Since the inception of the World Women’s Championship into the IIHF program in 1990, Team Canada won all eight championships leading up to the ninth Women’s World tournament in Sweden in 2005. Additionally, Canada had won the 2002 Olympic Gold. The only blemish to Canada’s women’s record was USA’s win in the 1998 Olympics.

When approaching the 2005 event in Linköping and Norrköping, Sweden, Team Canada’s women had one more incentive to win their ninth title. By doing so, they would tie the Soviet Union men’s team’s world record of nine straight World Championships between 1963 and 1971. In all eight previous World Championship finals beginning in 1990, Canada defeated the U.S. in the finals, and to no one’s surprise it was Canada versus USA again when the 2005 Gold medal game was played on 9 April at the Cloetta Center in Linköping. For the first time, Canada had reached the final without conceding a single goal in the tournament.

In the final, the United States was the better team, but like every other opponent Canada faced, it was unable to score. The scoreless game went into overtime and then a penalty shootout. The Americans were clearly the cooler team in the shootout as they put three shots past Canadian goaltender Kim St-Pierre, while Canada managed to score only once. It was only fitting that championship MVP Krissy Wendell was the one who scored on the decisive penalty shot, although it was Angela Ruggiero’s shot that technically counted as the game winner. Finally, USA had won their first Women’s World Championship Gold.

It was not only a momentous win for hockey and for the U.S. women’s program, but it was also a wonderful success for the American captain Cammi Granato who had been on the losing side in all eight previous finals. “It’s been a long time coming and it’s a historic moment for USA Hockey,” said an overwhelmed Granato after the game.

For Team Canada it was a bitter loss. Not only did the players miss out on the chance to tie the Soviet’s record of nine wins in a row, they lost the title despite not conceding an open play goal during an entire top pool IIHF World Championship. It was the first time it happened since Canada’s men had done the same at the 1931 World Championship.

BOXSCORE
1st Period
13:33 – 🇺🇸 PEN – Resor, holding
16:23 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Collins, cross checking

2nd Period
30:37 – 🇺🇸 PEN – Darwitz, hooking

3rd Period
44:57 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Apps, body checking

Overtime
63:52 – 🇺🇸 PEN – Kr. King, charging
76:06 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Pounder, interference

Shooutout
🇺🇸 Darwitz scored
🇨🇦 Vaillancourt scored
🇺🇸 Ruggiero scored
🇨🇦 Wickenheiser stopped
🇺🇸 Resor stopped
🇨🇦 Hefford stopped
🇺🇸 Wendell scored
🇨🇦 Ouellette stopped

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇺🇸 Gunn (26-26)
L: 🇨🇦 St-Pierre (49-50)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇺🇸 15+11+14+9+1 = 50
🇨🇦 7+6+6+7+0 = 26

ROSTERS
🇺🇸 Goaltenders: Chanda Gunn, Megan van Beusekom. Defence: Molly Engstrom, Jamie Hagerman, Courtney Kennedy, Helen Resor, Angela Ruggiero, Lyndsay Wall. Forwards: Julie Chu, Natalie Darwitz, Cammi Granato, Kim Insalaco, Kathleen Kauth, Katie King, Kristin King, Shelley Looney, Sarah Parsons, Jenny Schmidgall, Kelly Stephens, Krissy Wendell.
🇨🇦 Goaltenders: Charline Labonté, Kim St-Pierre. Defence: Correne Bredin, Delaney Collins, Becky Kellar, Carla MacLeod, Cheryl Pounder, Colleen Sostorics. Forwards: Gillian Apps, Kelly Bechard, Jennifer Botterill, Cassie Campbell, Danielle Goyette, Jayna Hefford, Gina Kingsbury, Caroline Ouellette, Cherie Piper, Vicky Sunohara, Sarah Vaillancourt, Hayley Wickenheiser.

Article Credit: IIHF 100 Top Stories of the Century
Photo Credit: Getty Images – IIHF – HHOF – IOC