2011 Winter Universiade: Canada off to final, to defend hockey title Saturday
ERZURUM, Turkey (CIS) - McGill's Ann-Sophie Bettez assisted on one goal as Canada skated to a dominating 8-1 semifinal win over the United States on Friday evening to qualify for the gold-medal final of the Winter Universiade women's hockey tournament.
IIHF game summary: http://www.erzurum2011.gov.tr/pdfts/IHW400202/C74
Team Canada website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/universiade/winter
2011 Winter Universiade website: http://www.erzurum2011.gov.tr/english
The red-and-white team comprised exclusively of Canadian Interuniversity Sport all-stars returns to the championship match two years after defeating host China 3-1 in the final of the first-ever World University Games women's hockey tourney, in Harbin.
Canada (6-0) will battle for gold against Finland (5-0-1) Saturday at 1 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET). The Canadians needed a shootout to edge the Finns 2-1 when the two teams met in their preliminary round opener on Jan. 27.
Finland beat Slovakia 5-1 in Friday's early semifinal.
Canada only led 2-1 going into the first intermission against the United States, despite outshooting their rivals 22-4. The CIS standouts scored three times in both the second and third periods however and finished with a decisive 56-7 advantage in shots on net.
Canada had easily defeated the USA 9-0 in round-robin action on Monday.
"It kind of took us a while to get going in the first. But I wasn't that surprised because we haven't played a real competitive game in a while. I think the players were looking a bit ahead," said Team Canada head coach Les Lawton. "It was just a question of getting our legs and getting back to the level of intensity we have when we play our best hockey."
"The key against Finland will be to shut down their top players. They have a couple of really good players and if we can contain them we'll be fine," added the Concordia University bench boss. "I think we have a little more depth than they do so if we can have a good first half of the game and wear them out a little, that would definitely help."
Université de Moncton forward Mariève Provost led the way against the Americans with two goals and an assist. The native of Laval, Que., opened the scoring only one minute and 50 seconds into the contest and made it a 6-1 affair 39 seconds into the third frame.
"There's always a big rivalry in women's hockey between Canada and the USA and we wanted to try and put the game away as quickly as we could," said Provost, one of six returnees from the 2009 championship team. "Personally, I wasn't having a great tournament before today so it was really important for me to step up in the semifinals. It feels great right now."
"We're going to have to play great tomorrow to beat Finland. They're a very good team. They have a very imposing goalie so we'll have to make sure we shoot lots of pucks at her."
Also scoring for Canada were Western Ontario's Ellie Seedhouse of Whitby, Ont., Wilfrid Laurier's Candice Styles of Orangeville, Ont., Manitoba's Addie Miles of Winnipeg, York's Kelsey Webster of Duncan, B.C., St. Francis Xavier's Suzanne Fenerty of Cole Harbour, N.S., and Montreal's Kim Deschênes of Saint-Quentin, N.B.
Styles made it 3-1 with her eighth of the competition 55 seconds into the middle stanza, tying her for second in the tournament's goal-scoring race.
Laurier netminder Liz Knox of Stouffville, Ont., earned the win after making four saves in 40 minutes of action. Brock's Beth Clause of Hamilton took over in the third and turned aside the two pucks fired her way.
Heather Rossi finished with 48 saves in front of the American cage.
Despite the lopsided score Canada did struggle on the power play converting only one of nine opportunities. The USA went 0-for-1.
SCORING SUMMARY
Canada 8, USA 1
FIRST PERIOD
1. CAN Mariève Provost (2) (Erin Lally), 1:50
2. CAN Ellie Seedhouse (3) (Jacalyn Sollis), 12:46
3. USA Charlotte Hoium (2) (Lindsay Reihl), 15:39
PENALTIES:
Justine Ducie (USA) delay of game, 3:00;
Rachel Black (USA) tripping, 4:41;
Ramey Weaver (USA) body checking, 9:03;
Megan Winters (USA) cross checking, 10:44.
SECOND PERIOD
4. CAN Candice Styles (8) (Suzanne Fenerty), 0:55
5. CAN Addie Miles (1) (Ann-Sophie Bettez), 11:12
6. CAN Kelsey Webster (2) (Addie Miles, Breanne George), 17:49
PENALTIES:
Mariève Provost (CAN) elbowing, 5:01.
THIRD PERIOD:
7. CAN Mariève Provost (3) (Kim Deschênes), 0:39
8. CAN Suzanne Fenerty (1) (Mariève Provost), 7:29
9. CAN Kim Deschênes (4) (unassisted), 18:12 PP
PENALTIES:
Erica Wynn (USA) slashing, 2:09;
Shea Crawford (USA) delay of game, 5:28;
Heather Rossi (USA) charging, 11:18;
Ramey Weaver (USA) hooking, 14:28;
Shea Crawford (USA) cross checking, 17:59.
GOALS (by period)
CAN: 2-3-3: 8
USA: 1-0-0: 1
SHOTS ON GOAL (by period)
CAN: 22-16-18: 56
USA: 4-1-2: 7
POWER PLAY:
CAN: 0-9
USA: 0-1
GOALTENDERS
CAN - Liz Knox (start; W, 3-0, 5 shots, 4 saves, 1 GA, 40:00)
CAN - Beth Clause (2 shots, 2 saves, 0 GA, 20:00)
USA - Heather Rossi (L, 56 shots, 48 saves, 8 GA, 60:00)
REFEREE: Zuzanna Findorova (SVK)
LINESMEN: Magdalena Cerhitova (SVK), Merve Sarimert (TUR)
ATTENDANCE: 1750
START: 20:00
END: 21:54
LENGTH: 1:54
TEAM CANADA SCHEDULE & RESULTS (local time)
Thursday, Jan. 27: Canada 2, Finland 1 (1-0 in shootout)
Friday, Jan. 28: Canada 3, Slovakia 0
Sunday, Jan. 30: Canada 14, Great Britain 0
Monday, Jan. 31: Canada 9, USA 0
Wednesday, Feb. 2: Canada 11, Turkey 0
Friday, Feb. 4 (semifinal #1): Finland 5, Slovakia 1
Friday, Feb. 4 (semifinal #2): Canada 8, USA 1
Saturday, Feb. 5, 9:30 (bronze): USA vs. Slovakia
Saturday, Feb. 5, 13:00 (final): Canada vs. Finland
PRELIMINARY ROUND STANDINGS (FINAL)
GP W OTW OTL L GF GA PTS
1. Canada 5 4 1 0 0 39 1 14
2. Finland 5 4 0 1 0 49 3 13
3. Slovakia 5 3 0 0 2 33 11 9
4. USA 5 2 0 0 3 25 18 6
5. Great Britain5 1 0 0 4 11 36 3
6. Turkey 5 0 0 0 5 0 88 0
Scoring system:
3 points for a win in regulation
2 points for a win in overtime or shootout
1 point for a loss in overtime or shootout
Legend: W (win), OTW (OT win), OTL (OT loss), L (loss)
For more information contact:
Ari Grossman (on site in Turkey)
Communications Officer
Team Canada
2011 Winter Universiade
Cell (in Turkey): 011-90-537-704-91-13
agrossman [at] wlu.ca
Michel Bélanger
Manager, Communications & Media Relations
Canadian Interuniversity Sport
Off: (613) 562-5670 ext. 25
Cell: (613) 447-6334
belanger [at] universitysport.ca