Weekend recap: Canadian women's hockey team reunifies the titles
Plus, more gold for McIntosh and another trophy for Gushue
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Another women's hockey thriller, two more victories for Canada's best swimmer and a season-ending trophy for the national men's curling champion highlighted a winning weekend for Canadian Olympic athletes. Here's a recap:
Canada took back the women's hockey world title.
Danielle Serdachny's power-play goal five minutes into overtime gave Canada a dramatic 6-5 victory over the United States in yesterday's world championship final in Utica, N.Y. Serdachny, a 22-year-old forward from Edmonton who starred at Colgate University this season, backhanded home a rebound for her second goal of the tournament in the dying seconds of Canada's 4-on-3 advantage resulting from a U.S. penalty for having too many players on the ice.
Serdachny's goal gave Canada its third world championship in four years — all via one-goal wins over the U.S. in the gold-medal game. Last year, the Americans defeated Canada 6-3 in the final in Brampton, Ont., to capture their first title since 2019.
The Canadians returned the favour on their archrivals' home ice with help from — of course — Marie-Philip Poulin. The 33-year-old captain, whose uncanny knack for clutch goals has propelled Canada to numerous titles over the last decade and a half, came into the tournament banged up and had not scored heading into the final. But Poulin came through again with two goals — a bar-down beauty that tied it 3-3 in the second period before she put Canada up 5-4 in the third. "There's very few athletes in the world that can perform in a pressure situation like she can," said coach Troy Ryan.
WATCH | Breaking down Canada's win at women's hockey worlds:
With the victory, Canada reunified the world and Olympic titles. Canada captured the latter in 2022 in Beijing with a 3-2 win over the U.S. in the gold-medal game.
This was the first world championship since the birth of the Professional Women's Hockey League, and players observed that the Canada-U.S. games felt faster and more intense. The PWHL returns from its world-championship break on Thursday. The regular season wraps up on May 5, followed by the inaugural Walter Cup playoffs for the top four teams.
Summer McIntosh starred at the Speedo Canadian Swimming Open.
The 17-year-old phenom finished with four victories in as many nights at the prep meet for next month's Olympic trials in her hometown of Toronto. After winning the women's 100m and 200m freestyle events, McIntosh defeated reigning Olympic champion Maggie Mac Neil for the 100m butterfly gold on Friday night, then dominated Saturday's 200m individual medley.
McIntosh owns a pair of world titles in both the 200m butterfly and 400m medley. But she skipped those events as she used the Canadian Open to continue her training for the Olympics. "I'm more of a mid-distance swimmer overall, but kind of developing my speed and finishing off races as well as possible is something that I learned a lot at this meet," said McIntosh, who's poised to win her first Olympics medal(s) in Paris this summer after placing fourth as a 14-year-old in 2021.
Brad Gushue won the Grand Slam of Curling's season finale.
A week after losing to Sweden's Nik Edin in the final of the men's world championship in Switzerland, the six-time Brier winner defeated top-ranked Joel Retornaz of Italy 7-6 yesterday to capture the Players' Championship in Toronto.
Switzerland's Silvana Tirinzoni won the women's final over Sweden's Isabella Wrana. Tirinzoni's streak of four straight world titles ended last month when Canada's Rachel Homan beat her in the final in Sydney, N.S. The Swiss skip got a slice of revenge on Saturday by defeating Homan in the semis.
Canada's Jennifer Jones did not qualify for the playoffs in the final four-player tournament of her unparalleled career. Jones, who will continue to play mixed doubles next season, skipped her teams to a record-tying six Canadian championships along with two world titles and an Olympic gold medal. The 49-year-old is one of the high-profile players involved with a new Grand Slam ownership group that is promising big changes when it takes over the series next season.
Canadian track cyclists captured three medals at a home event.
Dylan Bibic won gold in the men's elimination race; Lauriane Genest took bronze in the women's keirin; while Ryan Dodyk, James Hedgecock and Tyler Rork teamed up for bronze in the men's team sprint at a Nations Cup stop in the Toronto area.
Bibic, 20, took silver in the elimination at last year's world championships and won the scratch race world title in 2022. Genest earned bronze in the keirin at the 2021 Olympics.
Reigning Olympic women's sprint champion Kelsey Mitchell did not reach the podium during the three-day meet in Milton, Ont., which was the final qualifier for this summer's Olympics. The sprint team of Dodyk, Hedgecock and Rork was among those who grabbed a spot.
Today, CBC/Radio-Canada unveiled its coverage plans for the Summer Games in Paris, which open in just over 100 days. The network will deliver 22 hours of live coverage a day on its television and online platforms. Read more here.
