The Canadian women’s hockey team quoted a man who climbed Mount Everest twice before starting the World Championship.
Posted yesterday at 1:41 p.m.
Jamie Clarke, a Canadian adventurer who reached the world’s highest peak in 1997 and 2010, spoke to the Canadian team twice in the weeks leading up to the Beijing Olympics in February, when Canada won gold.
“He talked about conquering Mount Everest and one of his messages was that you’re on top for just a fraction of a second,” said head coach Troy Ryan.
Only six months after its Olympic triumph, Canada will once again defend its supremacy in women’s hockey at the Worlds. Canada has won both titles in the past year.
“What Jamie Clarke said really connected with us,” said captain Marie-Philip Poulin.
“He went through a whole process to get to the top. It’s a nice reward when you get there, but it lasts two seconds, then you’re back down, trying to get back up. »
We have had a great year. We won at the World Cup, we won at the Olympics. We had moments to celebrate, but now we are back to work.
Marie-Philip Poulin
The Women’s World Hockey Championship in Herning and Frederikshavn, Denmark, is the first to be held in the same year as the Olympics.
Canada will begin its title defense on Thursday against Finland at the KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning, a town of 50,000 people 300 kilometers west of Copenhagen.
The International Ice Hockey Federation decided that there was now enough depth in women’s hockey to hold a World Championship every year, rather than skip the Olympic years. This decision also aims to encourage federations to invest more consistently in their women’s teams.
Without Russia
The tournament was initially canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but was finally held in August in Calgary last summer.
Russia is not present at the 10-team tournament this year. She was banned by the IIHF following the invasion of Ukraine. Sweden is therefore back in the Championship by virtue of its world ranking.
Canada finds itself in Group A with the United States, Finland, Switzerland and Japan. Group B consists of Sweden, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Denmark.
Poulin scored the game-winning goal in overtime against the United States in the final last year, ending the Americans’ five-title streak.
Canada had not held the world and Olympic titles at the same time before the start of a World Championship since 2008.
“I don’t think we feel like we’re on a roll,” Ryan said. I think the group is confident. I don’t know how we couldn’t be after a year like this.
“We’ve had success over the past year and maybe people expect us to pick up where we left off. I think we can improve some things, but you don’t want to start a new year by changing things substantially. »
Canada has reached the final of the World Women’s Hockey Championship in all but one tournament since its inception in 1990. It settled for bronze in 2019 after losing in the semi-finals to Finland.