UTICA – An overtime goal decided the outcome of the first meeting between the United States and Canada for the 2024 International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship. A goal in extra time also made the difference in the second meeting between the top two teams in the competition, but the second goal ended a completely different game, with the opposing team scoring.
Daniel Serdachny, who recently completed his senior season at Colgate University, scored 5 minutes, 16 seconds into overtime to give Canada a 6-5 victory over the United States on Sunday at the Adirondack Bank Center in Utica for the 13th time. won the gold medal at the tournament.
The United States, the reigning champions who will be crowned in 2023 in Brampton, Ont., defeated Canada 1-0 in overtime in pool play on the same ice six days earlier.
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Serdachny's second and decisive goal of the tournament came with two seconds left on the first power play of overtime.
“She spun around, found the puck and put it in the net,” Canada coach Troy Ryan said of the winning goal that gave the player a record 25th victory.
Serdachny said she was reviewing the play of U.S. goalie Erin Frankel when a shot from teammate Erin Ambrose hit her in the thigh. She put her stick on the puck and backhanded it past Frankel.
“Ambrose took a good shot,” said Serdachny, a two-time Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award finalist at Colgate University and leading scorer on the Raiders' Frozen Four team this winter. “In the end, I took a lucky chance. When (the puck) went in the back of the goal, it was unbelievable.”
Skating 4-on-3 on the overtime power play, Ambrose received the puck from goaltender Anne-Reny Desbiances, but the other assist came from Deviances.
“It's very special to see Canada on top again,” said Serdachny, who arrived at Colgate from Edmonton, Alberta.
Both teams traded goals throughout the match, taking turns taking a one-point lead and then catching up to the tie. The scores were tied for him at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, but there was no longer a tie at 6 as the game moved to a 3-on-3 sudden-death competition. Even the 3v3 format proved to be important. The expiring power play started when the United States was penalized for having too many players on the ice. The overtime power play procedure adds a non-infringing player to the penalized team, rather than removing one from the team.
Ambrose, who had not scored in his previous six games, opened the scoring Sunday with an unassisted goal 6 1/2 minutes into the first period, giving Canada a 1-0 lead less than two minutes later. Laila Edwards also led the USA with a goal assisted by Taylor Heise. Edwards tied teammate Alex Carpenter for the tournament's top scorers with six points and was named Most Valuable Player.
In the second period, each team scored two points and took the lead once. Julia Gosling opened the scoring for Canada, and Megan Keller equalized for the United States seven minutes later, marking the longest period in which either team has led. Carpenter gave the Americans the lead at 16:32, and Canada tied the score at 3 with captain Marie-Philippe Poulain's unassisted goal with 1:02 left.
Team USA captain Hilary Knight started the game with a score in the third period, scoring her 10th and fourth goal of the year for the tournament, where she was already the all-time scoring leader. Less than two minutes later, Emily Clarke scored for Canada. Poulin's second goal gave Canada its final lead in regulation, and the Americans answered two and a half minutes later through Caroline Harvey.
The teams played five scoreless minutes at the end of regulation and another five minutes before overtime began. Monday's game went scoreless for 63 minutes before Kirsten Sims scored the winning goal.
“Everyone said the 1-0 game in the preliminaries was a really entertaining game,” Ambrose said. “I found that 6-on-5 is also fun.”
It was announced that the gold medal match attracted a crowd of 4,142, 125 more than the record set on Monday night.
“We couldn't get over the support we got from the community,” U.S. coach John Roblewski said. “Not just at the rink, but also around town.”
