U.S. Women's Hockey Team Wins Gold, Beating Canada In Penalty-Shot Thriller

The U.S. women's hockey team owns Olympic gold for the first time in 20 years, after breaking Canada's remarkable streak of success in a gripping final at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The only previous U.S. win had come in the tournament's first year, in 1998.

When the American women finally received their gold medals, they were placed on their necks by former player Angela Ruggiero — who was on the last U.S. Olympic team to win it all.

This game was far from easy — for the players on either side, and for their fans. Regulation time had ended with a 2-2 tie — and when a 20-minute overtime didn't produce a sudden-death goal, a penalty shootout also ended in a 2-2 tie. That sent it to a sudden-death shootout to decide who would wear gold.

Canada had taken the first shot in the first round of the shootout — and to lead off the second, the U.S. sent Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson skating out.

"The last shootout against Canada, I looked like an idiot," Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson said after the game.

But since that past failure, the American said, she's been working on her penalty shots — and it showed on Thursday.

Starting from center ice, Lamoureux-Davidson used some artful stick handling to get the puck around and past Canada's goalie, changing directions several times. It confounded Canada's goalie Shannon Szabados, who had shone in this game.

That left it to U.S. goalkeeper Maddie Rooney, 20, to withstand the pressure and make one last save — against one of the most adept scorers in the game, in Canada's Meghan Agosta, a veteran who began her Olympics career in 2006. When Rooney foiled Agosta's shot, both the game and the U.S. gold drought were over, after three hours of intense and physical play and tension at the Gangneung Hockey Center.


source: npr