USA, Canada to face off in Women's World Championship gold-medal game
ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE, Czechia — Team USA and Team Canada will play in the gold-medal game of the 2025 IIHF Women's World Championship on Sunday.
The rivals have faced off for gold at 23 of 24 women's world championships since the tournament began in 1990, including last year's gold-medal game, which Canada won 6-5 in overtime. This year's championship rematch was set after both teams won their semifinal games on Saturday night.
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Team USA narrowly escaped elimination in the first semifinal of the day with a 2-1 win against Czechia. It was a physical, intense game — the best of the tournament thus far — with a stellar performance from Czech goalie Klára Peslarová, who made 43 saves in the loss.
The host Czechia scored a stunning opening goal against the top-seeded Americans, who went 4-0 through the group stage. With less than five minutes remaining in the first period, U.S. defender Savannah Harmon turned the puck over deep in the U.S. zone with goalie Aerin Frankel out of her crease. Czech forward Tereza Plosová — a top commit to the University of Minnesota — waited for a diving Lacey Eden to go by, and chipped the puck over Frankel for the opening goal of the game.
Czechia held the 1-0 lead until late in the second period, when Laila Edwards scored a power-play goal — her first of the tournament — to draw the game even. Kelly Pannek gave the U.S. its first lead in the third period with her team-leading fourth goal of the tournament, which would be the game winner.
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For most of the game, the 5,859 fans inside Budvar Arena were clapping, chanting and on their feet for the home team. It was the fifth-straight sellout for Czechia during a record-breaking tournament. With over 100,000 fans in attendance heading into the final day of the tournament, the 2025 worlds have been the best-attended tournament hosted outside North America.
'It was just an amazing showing by the Czech players, not only those on the ice, but (the fans) in the arena,' U.S. coach John Wroblewski said after the game. 'They had so much energy. Every loose puck meant the world to them, every blocked shot meant everything to them. And I just have so much respect for how the Czechs played. And so with that, I've got so much respect for the way that our team got the victory, because that was a tough game to play.'
On the other hand, Team Canada beat Finland 8-1 in the second semifinal of the day. But it was Finland's Michelle Karvinen who opened the scoring just 45 seconds into the game. On Tuesday, Karvinen, 35, became the highest scoring Finnish player at women's worlds, passing Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Riikka Sallinen.
The game was tied less than two minutes later after Erin Ambrose buried a rebound on Finnish goalie Emilia Kyrkkö. Then, Marie-Philip Poulin gave Canada a 2-1 lead with a historic goal to pass Hayley Wickenheiser as Canada's all-time leading scorer at the women's worlds.
The game stayed close until Canada scored four goals in the final three minutes of the second period to go up 6-1. Daryl Watts scored twice during that sequence, while Emily Clark and Danielle Serdachny put things well out of reach. Claire Thompson and Sarah Nurse added more goals in the third.
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Ann-Renée Desbiens made 19 saves in the win, her 22nd all-time at women's worlds, which broke Florence Schelling's career wins record.
Finland and Czechia will (once again) play for bronze at 8 a.m. (ET) Sunday. Finland beat Czechia 3-2 in a shootout for bronze at last year's tournament, and again 4-2 just last week during the group stage. Czechia will look to get back on the podium for the first time since winning back-to-back bronze medals in 2022 and '23 — this time in front of a home crowd.
USA and Canada will play the tournament's final game at noon (ET) Sunday. Team USA beat Canada in their preliminary round match 2-1, but preliminary success is not always telling of what's to come in a gold medal match. For the last three years, the winner of the group stage game has not won the world championship.
'We learned a little bit about ourselves tonight, but I think we learned a little bit about them as well,' Canadian head coach Troy Ryan said after the April 13 game. 'Hopefully, we can make the adjustments we need to make.'
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Team USA will enter the gold-medal game as the No. 1-seeded team, feeling 'battle tested' after a tougher game than usual in the semifinals.
'There were times it felt like a Canada-USA game,' Edwards said. 'I'm glad we had that game, credit to Czechia for really bringing it.'
A key issue for the Americans throughout the tournament has been scoring efficiency. On Saturday night, they only scored two goals on 45 shots. During the quarterfinals, they only scored three goals on 51 shots.
There's something to be said about the strong goaltending in women's hockey, but the U.S. has only the fourth-best scoring rate (9.24 percent) in the tournament.
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'At some point here, you'd hope the law of averages would start to work their way in,' Wroblewski said. 'It's astounding that we haven't scored more goals. I will say that.'
After losing to Canada last year at worlds in Utica, N.Y., one of Wroblewski's takeaways was that Team USA needed to show up in Czechia with 'the biggest, sturdiest and most mobile team' possible to negate how good Canada is.
In focusing on the physical side of the game, Team USA has lost some of its offense, especially with skilled players like Kirsten Simms or Hannah Bilka either scratched or left off the roster entirely.
Of course, scoring efficiency won't matter if the U.S. can grind out another 2-1 victory against Canada. And especially if starter Aerin Frankel continues her strong play with a 0.75 goals against average.
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But it'll be easier said than done, attempting to beat Canada at its game.
Team USA has only beaten Canada once over the last five major international competitions (2023 worlds). Canada enters the final as the reigning champs with the best offense in the tournament. No team has scored more goals (34) at a higher rate (14 percent). Not to mention, Poulin, who has scored more championship-winning goals than any player ever, is healthy and leading the tournament in scoring (11).
Watts, who has four goals and five points in her debut worlds, was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct on Saturday night for an illegal hit to the head. If she were to get supplemental discipline, it would be a huge loss for Canada.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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