USA Women's Hockey

The Canadians lose about as often as a 70-degree day hits Saskatoon in the middle of January. They play in front of a hostile crowd less often.

So when the U.S. Women’s National Team stormed out of the games in the opening game of the 2012 IIHF Women’s World Championship and ignited a firestorm of pro-USA fervor among the sold-out crowd at Gutterson Fieldhouse, it was a shock to their system from which they couldn’t recover.

Now, as they prepare to face off against Team USA in a gold-medal rematch, the Canadians are determined that things will be different this time around as they go for their 10th title in tournament history.

“You never want to lose a game like that, especially with that logo on our chest, but a loss is a loss is a loss, it doesn’t matter what the score was,” said Canadian goaltender Shannon Szabados, who stopped 14 shots in a 5-1 semifinal victory over Finland.

“We just want to learn from it and come out better the next game.”

Playing a better game means putting the 9-2 opening loss behind them, the worst in Canadian Women’s National Team history, and refocusing on a new day.

“The past is the past. Nobody likes losing. For us, it brought us closer together and we needed to figure out what we need to do to be better and we did,” said veteran forward Meghan, who had a goal and an assist against Finland.

“We’ve taken the right step in the right direction and tomorrow is a new day. We just need to come prepared.”

Canada knows that turning the tide starts with slowing down the U.S. attack, especially during the early stages. The Americans scored five goals in the first five minutes in the opener, including a goal just 37 seconds into the game. Stunned and shell-shocked, the Canadians never recovered, especially in front of the pro-American crowd.

And with another packed house slated for Saturday night, and the University of Vermont band brassing it up at the old barn, it promises to be another electric atmosphere.

“I think it was a huge impact for them in the first five minutes, and as I’ve said a few times this week it’s the only time in our national team history that we didn’t have as many Canadian fans in the stands as Americans and when the U-S-A, U-S-A chants happened there was no one there to drown it out with Canada, Canada,” said Canadian head coach Dan Church.

“I think it had a bit of an impact and we’ve had a bit of a dress rehearsal and we’ll be better prepared come tomorrow night.

“The key is the first five minutes. I think we need to weather that storm and play on our toes and not on our heels.”

Another key for Canada will be to play a more disciplined style of hockey. Against Finland, the Canadians took seven penalties, but were fortunate that the Finns were only able to capitalize once. The Americans feature a much more potent power play, scoring 13 extra-strength goals in four tournament games, including three against the Canadians.

“The U.S. team is so good about putting pucks into the danger area, whether they shoot it in directly or they slide pucks in there and they hunt for rebounds, I read that on their website, how they’re really all about that,” Church said.

“We’re going to need a good goaltending performance and we’re going to need our defense to step up and play good team defense in our zone.”