Canada, U.S. women to clash in Edmonton, final hockey tune-up before Olympic Games

United States goaltender Aerin Frankel blocks a shot in front of Rory Guilday (6) and Canada's Natalie Spooner (24) in the third period of a Rivalry Series women's hockey game Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) (Sue Ogrocki)

Canada’s best players in women’s hockey get one last chance to forge chemistry, and beat the archrival United States, before the Olympic Games.

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Canada and the U.S. clash Wednesday and Saturday at Edmonton’s Rogers Place to complete a four-game Rivalry Series.

The Americans took the first two games 4-1 in Cleveland and 6-1 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Those were gaudy scores considering one of the most storied rivalries in women’s sport usually produces games decided by one goal, often in overtime.

Winning in Edmonton is important, says head coach Troy Ryan, but there are other considerations with February’s Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, on the horizon, and the Professional Women’s Hockey League that didn’t exist four years ago.

“You don’t want to have results like that, but there’s part, to me, that you can justify a little bit,” Ryan said.

“I tried to put everybody in multiple situations and test them and see how they would handle different scenarios.

“Just because of the evaluation scenario and some of the dynamics we’re trying to sort through, I just continued to play people in most situations. We’re glad we saw some things that we need to see, good and bad.”

While reigning world champion U.S. started its top goalies Aerin Frankel in Cleveland and Gwyneth Philips in Buffalo, Canada went with the more inexperienced Eve Gascon in the first game and Kayle Osborne in the second.

Canada’s roster for Edmonton returns 20 players from the U.S. leg of the series and adds veteran goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens, defenders Jocelyne Larocque and Nicole Gosling, and forwards Brianne Jenner and Emily Clark.

They draw in for goaltender Gascon, defenders Micah Zandee-Hart and Kati Tabin, and forwards Hannah Miller and Sarah Nurse, who played in the first two games.

The last two games of the series serve multiple purposes for Canada, which will attempt to defend its Olympic title claimed in Beijing in 2022.

“Every time I hear the word ‘priorities,’ my mother used to say, ‘if you chase two rabbits, both get away,’” Ryan said.

“I say it in hockey all the time. There generally can only be one, but you’d like to dabble in more than one. We’d like to close the gap a little bit here and have some confidence heading into the Olympics, but we’ve still got some sorting out to do.

“We need to give some people further opportunities and looks and see if they can have a way to have an impact before we make some final selections.”

Hockey Canada is expected to name its 23-player Olympic roster in early January after a selection process drastically different from previous Winter Games because of the PWHL, now in its third season.

Instead of centralizing the women in Calgary for six months and playing games against male triple-A or Junior A teams, Hockey Canada has worked around the PWHL’s schedule with three two-week training camps in September, October and November before the league started Nov. 21.

“It’s been an interesting year to say the least, going through kind of the new norm of getting together every two weeks and now starting the league,” said Canada’s general manager Gina Kingsbury, who is also GM of the PWHL’s Toronto Sceptres.

“This Edmonton trip will be a really great opportunity, now that we’ve played a few weeks in the league to get back together and to have one final kind of connect before decisions are made in January and off we go to Games.

“You can’t underestimate the value of connection and the relationships that we all have and the trust that we build over time. The connection piece here in Edmonton is super important before we head to Milan in February.”

Hockey Canada has been waiting for months for a ruling by the International Ice Hockey Federation on the status of Miller.

She played for host China in Beijing. Miller also represented Canada in back-to-back women’s world under-18 championships in 2013 and 2014, so Kingsbury seeks Miller’s reinstatement to Canada.

The IIHF states a player can switch national eligibility just once in a career.

“That’s still at the IIHF level,” Kingsbury said. “There’s still back and forth on some things. We thought we were going to get an answer soon. We haven’t got that yet.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2025.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press