Assistant captain Larocque helps Team Canada at Olympics

Team Canada’s quest to defend their women’s hockey Olympic gold medal had to be postponed, after a norovirus (stomach flu) ripped through Team Finland, their first scheduled opponent.

Canada, with Ste Anne’s Jocelyne Larocque serving as an assistant captain, instead opened with a dominating 4-0 win over Switzerland Feb. 7 and a 5-1 victory over Czechia Feb. 9. The team was shut out for the first time at the Olympics by the United States Feb. 10, losing 5-0.

Canada’s chances of a gold medal took a massive hit against favourites U.S.A. The team was roundly out-played, taking their most lopsided loss at the Olympics in team history. Canada was also swept in the a four-game pre-Olympics exhibition series against the Americans.

“We just didn’t play very well at all. Irresponsible with the puck, like just poor puck management. And it’s not that there’s not confidence, but we played like we didn’t have confidence with the puck,” head coach Troy Ryan said after the game against The States.

“We rushed a lot of decisions—you look at the number of offsides we had, the number of icings we had and that was uncharacteristic. I also think the speed and pace of that game was definitely an upgrade compared to the first two games we had. It probably forced us to make decisions we wouldn’t usually do.”

In their first game, the Canucks were stonewalled by Swiss goaltender Saskia Maurer, who kept her team in the game despite getting outshot 30-3 through 40 minutes and 55-6 across the game but a strong powerplay effort in the third period gave the Canadians the margin they needed.

Against Czechia, Canada survived an early five-on-three penalty kill and took control early, scoring four times in the first period despite losing captain Marie-Philip Poulin to injury.

“It’s hard to see it happen, especially to someone like that,” Laura Stacey, who scored in the game said after.

“[Poulin’s] our leader and our rock. It kind of hit us, we all looked at each other, we all felt it. At the end of the day she’s picked us up so many times, she’d led the way and now it’s our turn to pick her up, support her and do whatever we could to get that win for her, but also for ourselves as a group. We regrouped, we tried to keep it simple and we tried to adjust with the lines changing since she was out. There’s a lot to be proud of in terms of sticking together like that.”

Larocque made a great play in the second period while killing a penalty, dropping behind her own goaltender to make a desperation play to tie up a Czechia player to prevent a goal.

Under Olympic rules, Canada could have been awarded a 1-0 win over Finland due to the virus but the team never considered it a realistic option.

“I think in the spirit of the Games and wanting to compete in these Games, making sure that we’re doing so in a safe manner was our priority,” Team Canada’s general manager Gina Kingsbury told reporters following the announcement the Finland game would be postponed.

“We felt it was a good option and a responsible decision for us to be able to postpone.”

The team will play their make-up game against Finland Feb. 12, with the quarterfinals staring the next day. The Gold medal game will be Feb. 19.

With files from Mike McIntyre