Women’s Worlds Preview: Can Team Canada three-peat as champs?

Canada’s women’s national hockey team should be feeling right at home when they hit the ice for their first game of the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship on Wednesday.

After all, the host nation of this year’s tournament in Brampton, Ont., enters the event looking pretty comfortable atop the hockey world. Canada won the last two women’s worlds, first snapping the United States’ gold streak in 2021 before successfully defending the title last summer at the 2022 tournament. Add in last winter’s Olympic gold and a thrilling comeback in this year’s Canada-USA Rivalry Series that saw the team in red and white claim victory after being down 0-3, and you’ve got quite the string of success.

Now the question is, can Canada carry that momentum into the 2023 worlds and defend the title once again? Here’s what you need to know about Canada’s quest for gold ahead of Wednesday’s puck drop.

After back-to-back world championship titles, Team Canada eyes the threepeat

After witnessing five straight golden victories for Team USA, Canada regained its standing atop the tournament with a golden victory in 2021. A year later — a year in which Canada also won back Olympic gold after the Americans’ victory in 2018 — Canada defended the title in August 2022. (That was the first time the IIHF held a women’s world championship in an Olympic year.)

Now, the tournament is back in its usual springtime slot and Team Canada opens its quest for the three-peat. The last time Canada was in a position to win more than two consecutive worlds golds was during their golden streak that started when the tournament was initially launched in 1990. Canada won all eight world championships held between 1990 and 2004, after which Team USA took over as the more dominant force in the event.

Marie-Philip Poulin is fresh off making history, and about to chase more

She’s the best player in the game today, and she just keeps getting better. Team Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin made some pretty impressive history during this season’s Canada-USA Rivalry Series. In Game 6 of the series in February, Poulin registered her 200th career point with the Canadian women’s national team, becoming just the fifth woman to reach that mark while representing Canada in international play. She joins fellow Canadian legends Hayley Wickenheiser (379 career points), Jayna Hefford (291), Caroline Ouellette (234) and Danielle Goyette (218) in that impressive tier.

Now, as she enters her 11th career world championship, she’s expected to climb that tournament’s all-time points list as well. At last year’s worlds, Poulin surpassed Ouellette on the tournament’s all-time points list with her 65th career world championship point. That saw her jump into fourth on Canada’s all-time tally behind Wickenheiser (86), Hefford (83), and Goyette (68) and eighth among all international players.

She needs three more to reach Goyette and, in doing so, would also leapfrog Team USA captain Kendall Coyne Schofield (67) and tie recently-retired U.S. star Brianna Decker for fifth all-time among all women’s players. American trailblazer Cammi Granato sits fourth (78) while Team USA star Hilary Knight made history last year when she took over the tournament’s all-time points lead and raised the bar with her 89th.

Canada gets boost of veteran power with Natalie Spooner back in the lineup

The roster Canada brings to Brampton is nearly identical to the one that defended worlds gold last summer in Denmark. Of the 23 women named to the 2023 tournament roster, 18 helped Canada win gold last year and 22 have at least one worlds gold to their name.

Veteran forwards — and two of the longest-tenured members of Team Canada — Rebecca Johnston and Natalie Spooner make their returns to the lineup after missing last year’s edition. Johnston missed the 2022 tournament with an injury. Spooner sat out during her pregnancy, and gave birth to her first child, son Rory, in early December. She now makes her return to international competition just four months post-partum. Having Spooner back in the lineup is a massive boost for Canada, who despite still claiming gold last summer certainly felt her absence while she was sidelined. Having the vocal veteran leader back on this squad also brings a healthy dose of speed and power into the top six.

Defenders Claire Thompson and Jaime Bourbonnais and are inserted back into the lineup on the blue line, with Ashton Bell and veteran Meaghan Mikkelson not on this year’s roster.

Team Canada named just one rookie to this year’s team: forward Danielle Serdachny. The 21-year-old Edmonton native is coming off an impressive senior season as captain of Colgate University in which she led all NCAA players in points (71 in 40 games), earned the ECAC’s player of the year award, and was named a top-three Patty Kazmaier finalist. She was part of Canada’s under-18 team back in 2018-19, helping the team win gold, and now gets her first shot with the senior squad.

With Johnston, Spooner, and Serdachny slotting in, forwards Jessie Eldridge, Sarah Potomak, and Victoria Bach — all three of whom were on last year’s roster — were not named to this year’s team.

The roster

Forwards: Emily Clark, Sarah Fillier, Brianne Jenner, Rebecca Johnston, Emma Maltais, Sarah Nurse, Kristin O’Neill, Marie-Philip Poulin, Jamie Lee Rattray, Danielle Serdachny, Natalie Spooner, Laura Stacey, Blayre Turnbull.

Defenders: Erin Ambrose, Jaime Bourbonnais, Renata Fast, Jocelyne Larocque, Ella Shelton, Claire Thompson, Micah Zandee-Hart.

Goaltenders: Kristen Campbell, Ann-Renee Desbiens, Emerance Maschmeyer

The schedule

Canada is in Group A alongside the United States, Switzerland, Czechia, and Japan, and will play four games in the preliminary stage of the tournament beginning Wednesday. Here are Canada’s preliminary matchups:

Wednesday, April 5: vs Switzerland, 7 p.m. ET

Friday, April 7: vs. Czechia, 7 p.m. ET

Saturday, April 8: vs. Japan, 7 p.m. ET

Monday, April 10: vs. USA, 7 p.m. ET

The elimination round opens April 13 with the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals on Apr. 15 and the gold-medal matchup Apr. 16. All games are held at the CAA Centre in Brampton, Ont.

Numbers to know

1: Canada is currently the top-ranked nation in women’s hockey on the international stage.

2: Canada enters this year’s tournament as back-to-back champions looking for a three-peat. In addition to winning two consecutive world championship golds in 2021 and 2022, Canada also regained its Olympic title with gold at the 2022 Games.

4: Marie-Philip Poulin sits fourth on Canada’s all-time points leaderboard at the women’s worlds behind Hayley Wickenheiser, Jayna Hefford, and Danielle Goyette. Poulin, whose career tally sits at 65, needs just four more to jump into third among Canadians all-time and fifth among all players internationally.

6: Canada has hosted the women’s worlds eight times before, winning gold on home ice six times. Most recently, they won gold in Calgary in 2021 to break a long streak of U.S. dominance. A gold-medal victory in Brampton would make them 7-for-9 on home ice.

12: Canada has won women’s worlds gold 12 times, the most of any nation. The United States is the only other team to have won gold, with their count at nine.

18: This edition of Team Canada isn’t new to winning — 18 were part of last year’s gold medal-winning team at the worlds while all but one (rookie Danielle Serdachny) has helped Canada win gold before.