Come the gold-medal game, the women’s world championship has always been about Canada and the United States.
And though that’s again expected to be the case when the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship wraps up in Kamloops on Monday, nations across Europe and Asia are inching ever closer to competing with the heavyweights of North America.
“I think every international tournament, from year to year that has taken place, the parity continues to get better,” Team Canada head coach and former Olympian Laura Schuler told KTW.
“You never know who can win those games now, so the parity has gotten tremendously better.”
Goaltending has always been the great equalizer in women’s hockey.
Schuler singled out netminding in Sweden and Finland, as well as the defensive play of the nations, for keeping international games close.
Japan boasts goaltender Nana Fujimoto, voted the best netminder in the 2015 world championship in Malmö, Sweden, and Switzerland’s Florence Schelling was the most valuable player in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Games are no longer as lopsided as they once were and the longer teams are able to stick around, the better their chances are of knocking off one of the traditional powerhouses.
“If you look back at just the recent tournaments and then, particularly, the Olympics, I think everybody that really got a chance to watch the depth of that tournament started to see a tipping point in favour of there being more competitive groups in that next tier as well as in the top four,” Reagan Carey, general manager of the United States since 2010, told KTW before the tournament got underway.
“I would anticipate that once we get to 2018, it will be even more paralleled.”
Behind Canada and the United States are a handful of nations all working to take their programs to the next level. Finland has won bronze in 11 of the last 16 world championships, as well as in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
Switzerland captured bronze at the 2014 Olympics and the Swedes played for bronze in both 2010 and 2014.
Russia is in Group A for its second consecutive world championship this year and has won three bronze medals in the last four years.
It can be difficult to always play second fiddle to the Canadians and the Americans, but programs from around the world are making small gains, investing more money in semi-professional women’s leagues and improving coaching and development programs in hopes future generations can reach new heights at tournaments like the world championship.
Granted, there’s work still to be done.
The women’s game has made tremendous strides in levelling the playing field, but as Canada’s 9-0 win over Sweden in pre-tournament action demonstrated, balance hasn’t entirely been achieved.
“It’s a little frustrating and we have to find some way to challenge them,” Leif Boork, head coach of Sweden since 2013, said of North American dominance in the sport.
“I think that time will come, but I don’t know when, but we try to challenge them.
“We are trying to catch up.”
While the rest of the world wants parity to arrive sooner, Canadian players told KTW improvements in the play of their opponents are noticeable.
Despite their position at the top of the heap, the Americans and the Canadians, as much as anyone, are hoping to soon see a day when any nation can contend for the gold medal at events like the world championship.
“It’s growing a lot and it’s really cool to see, honestly,” said Canadian defenceman Tara Watchorn, who is playing in her third world championship in Kamloops.
“You have to prepare every game like it’s the Canada-U.S. game.
“Every team brings a different style, brings different systems and you have to be ready to get on the ice every time we play.
“It brings a lot of excitement to these tournaments knowing that it’s going to be exciting games.
“We thrive off that, we love the competition and it gets you that much more prepared for a gold-medal game, whoever it is — and it could be anyone.”