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2022 Olympics: Canada advances to gold medal game, beating Switzerland 10-3

The Canadians dominated the Swiss and handily punched their ticket to the gold medal game

Canada and Switzerland are no strangers to each other; in the preliminary round, they met in what would result in a devastating 12-1 rout by the Canadians that saw four different players with two-goal games.

Though it took seven minutes for Team Canada to open the scoring, there was no looking back for them after that first goal by Claire Thompson. Multiple goals scored and multiple records broken — just another day for the Canadian women’s hockey team.

Goal Scorers

Canada: Claire Thompson, Jamie Lee Rattray, Blayre Turnbull, Renata Fast, Erin Ambrose, Marie-Philip Poulin, Emily Clark, Poulin, Emma Maltais, Brianne Jenner

Switzerland: Lara Stalder, Alina Müller, Stalder

Recap

The first few minutes of the game were mostly quiet, with Canada getting off to a much slower start than anyone expected. That being said, when Claire Thompson rifled one through traffic in front of Andrea Brändli to open the scoring, it was like a dam broke; once they started coming, they didn’t stop.

Four goals in a record-breaking 2:12 chased Brändli from her crease and replaced the starter with back-up Saskia Maurer, who made some huge saves to open her appearance in the game but ultimately couldn’t stave off Erin Ambrose, who fired home Canada’s fifth in the first period.

Lara Stalder answered back with a goal of her own for Switzerland before the conclusion of the first period, with a power play tally to beat Desbiens.

The second period saw Müller keep it coming for the Swiss and close her team’s deficit to three goals. It was Switzerland’s second goal on only nine shots. The Canadians followed Müller’s goal up with a bomb from Marie-Philip Poulin and a top shelf tally from Emily Clark in to make it 7-2, with 11 seconds in between the goals.

A tripping call against Laura Stacey gave the Swiss the skater advantage, and Stalder was not about to let that opportunity slip away from her squad. The captain scored her second goal of the game (#2TALDER, anyone?) to once again narrow the margin.

Before the second period was up, another goal from Poulin would make it 8-3.

The third period saw the pace of the game slow a little bit as both teams aimed to conserve their energy for their respective medal match-ups in the coming days. Goals from Emma Maltais — her first of the Olympic tournament — and Brianne Jenner — her ninth of the Olympic tournament — would send the Canadians to the gold medal game for the seventh consecutive Olympic tournament.

Ambrose’s goal towards the end of the first would mark Team Canada’s 49th goal of this year’s tournament, which broke the record previously held by the 2010 Canadian Olympic team for most goals scored by a team in a single Olympics. The Canadians tacked on five more to handily surpass the record.

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