Photo by Jacob Morrison
The U.S. women’s hockey team skated, scored and slid into first place at the 2018 Winter Olympics for the first time in 20 years.
Team USA defeated rival Canada to win the gold medal in hockey and ended the dry spell on Feb. 22, 2018, in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The women’s hockey team last won gold when it took on Team Canada in 1998 during the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Despite not winning gold for four consecutive Olympic Games, the women’s hockey team continuously placed. After 1998, Team USA won three silver medals and one bronze. Canada defeated the U.S. each time for the gold except for the 2006 Winter Olympics that took place in Turnin, Italy.
The U.S. women’s hockey team came prepared to do battle with its northern rival in the final game Thursday evening.
As soon as the puck fell to the ice an intense game was already underway. Team USA scored early in the first period, but the Canadians answered back early in the second period and tied the game.
Not long after scoring their first goal, Team Canada scored a second goal to take the lead. Team USA’s chances of tying the game and even winning started to diminish as the end of the third period loomed closer until Monique Lamoureux-Morando tied the game.
The hockey game went into overtime, but after 20 minutes of play delivered no winner, the game went into a shootout. A shootout in hockey occurs when a game remains tied after overtime. Each team sends five players shoot. Whoever has the highest score at the end of the shootout is awarded the win. However, if the game still remains tied, the game goes to sudden death. The game continues until one team scores, and the other one does not.
Team USA and Team Canada went into a shootout, but the game still remained undecided. Going into sudden-death, Team USA’s Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson went out on the ice, shot and scored successfully. Her goal put Team USA up 3-2. Team Canada’s Meghan Agosta failed to score against U.S. goalie Maddie Rooney.
The U.S. women’s hockey team finally ended Canada’s gold medal winning streak. On top of that, the hockey team ended its own 20 year streak of falling short of a gold medal.
The win added another gold medal to Team USA’s growing medal collection.