The opening ceremonies may not be until February 4th, but the Canadian women’s hockey team certainly appeared to be in mid tournament form in their Olympic debut against Switzerland last night.
Team Canada couldn’t have scripted a better start as they scored just 64 seconds into the game and never looked back. Canada would cruise to a 12-1 victory over Switzerland to move to 1-0 in Pool A for the round robin portion of the tournament.
21 year old Sarah Fillier got the scoring started for the Canucks batting a puck out of the air for the games first tally. From there, Fillier and her teammates poured 70 shots on goal, scoring 9 straight before Switzerland netted a powerplay marker in the 3rd period.
Swiss goaltender Andrea Braendli was reportedly given the option to come out in the 2nd period but elected to stay in. The Swiss side was clearly overpowered and were hemmed in their own zone for large stretches of the game. However Swiss captain Lara Stalder was able to break the shutout to score a minor moral victory.
While the score was certainly lopsided, Team Canada will have their work cut out for them in their next few games as they’ll face the US, Russia, and Finland over their next 3 contests. Pool B by comparison is a far easier schedule with Japan, China, Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark.
Many hockey fans are already pencilling in another Canada, US gold medal showdown, but with the way the knockout rounds are formatted, should the Canadians or Americans stumble in Pool A play, there could be a scenario where the two hockey superpowers could clash before the tournament’s championship game.
Since the inception of Women’s Hockey at the Olympic level in 1998, this year’s 10 team Olympic field marks the largest number of participants in Olympic history. Yet it will be a field that will be viewed largely online, owing to the limited number of tickets China is making available for Olympic events.
Wednesday night saw 1,000 spectators socially distanced throughout the arena. With tickets unavailable to the general public, tournament organizers will be closely monitoring admission for venues over the course of Beijing Games.
Team Canada is next in action against Finland on Friday at 11:10PM ET.