The United States heaved on the rope in 2025 in its women’s hockey tug of war with Canada.
Their rivalry is constant, but the stakes rise in the year preceding the Winter Olympics.
Canada has only won one of eight meetings against its nemesis in 2025.
The U.S. beat Canada twice in April’s world championship, including a 4-3 overtime win in the final. The Americans swept the four-game Rivalry Series in November and December by a combined score of 24-7.
The two countries split the conclusion of last season’s Rivalry Series before the U.S. won six straight. They’ve met in every Olympic final but one in 2006, when Sweden upset the U.S. in the semifinal.
Canadian forward Brianne Jenner, an Olympic veteran of three tense finals against the U.S., says she and her teammates remain confident they’ll have a team that can defend the gold medal in February’s Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.
“We trust each other, love each other, believe in each other,” Jenner stated.
Canada’s captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who was voted the International Ice Hockey Federation’s female player of the year in 2025, was also undaunted.
“We know there’s work to be done,” Poulin said.
Projecting Team Canada’s women’s hockey roster for Milano Cortina 2026
The Professional Women’s Hockey League, starting its third season in November, completely changed how both countries prepare for the Olympics.
Canada’s reliance on its team game, previously forged through six months of training and playing 20 to 30 games together, was no longer possible.
“It’s just the new changing landscape of women’s hockey, and we get to be a bit of the guinea pig here for the first go-round with the PWHL and the national team,” said Canada’s head coach Troy Ryan. “Even in a COVID year in 2022, we probably had more games as a group.”
Of the 30 women invited to Canada’s three two-week camps in September, October and November before the PWHL’s regular season began, and also played in the Rivalry Series, all but two were PWHL players.
The United States carries 21 PWHL players in its pool of 30, and nine from the NCAA.
Bodies of work with the national team in games and camps, plus players’ individual performances in the PWHL, determine Canada’s 23-player Olympic roster of three goalies and 20 skaters to be announced next week.
Canada’s general manager, Gina Kingsbury, reserved the right to select outside her pool of 30 if a player gets hot in the PWHL.
“Every game is watched by several coaches, and there are reports due to make sure that we’re documenting what we’re seeing on a daily basis with our athletes,” Kingsbury said. “We will use the PWHL play as a big indicator of who we bring to Milan and who we don’t.”
The women’s management team is comprised of Kingsbury, Ryan, senior manager of player development and scouting, Cherie Piper, assistant coaches Kori Cheverie, Caroline Ouellette and Britni Smith, and goaltending consultant Brad Kirkwood.
Women’s world championship rosters expanded from 23 to 25 players in 2025 to match the men’s, but it was too late in the quadrennial for the IIHF to apply to the International Olympic Committee for additional women in Milan.
Given how hard the women compete against each other in the PWHL, which breaks Jan. 28 for the Olympic Games, the spectre of injury is ever-present.
Kingsbury is also the GM, and Ryan is the head coach of the PWHL’s Toronto Sceptres.
While injury was a hazard when the women centralized in Calgary in the months leading up to previous Winter Games, Kingsbury is holding her breath more this time.
“I just felt like we maybe had more control and maybe it’s an illusion that I had,” she said with a laugh. “I do feel less control in this league because there’s maybe more games, more opportunities for something to happen, but that’s just something that every team is dealing with, not just Canada.
“That’s definitely the thing that keeps us up at night.”
Canada can change its roster up until its first game of the Olympic tournament, Feb. 4 against Finland.
“If there are injuries post-selection date, at least the players that get added will be players that have been with our group the entire time through,” Ryan said.
Players left off the Olympic team will be on notice that their status could change in the event of injury, Kingsbury said.
“That message will be delivered to everyone,” she said. “Be prepared. You may come to the Games last minute.”
