Late game heroics from Badgers Hilary Knight and Laila Edwards, and an overtime game winner by defender Megan Keller, propelled Team USA past Canada to win the women’s hockey gold medal 2-1. It’s just the third gold medal for Team USA in Winter Olympics history.
Down 1-0 with 2:04 in the third, current Badger Edwards sniped a shot at Canadian goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens, and a tip by Badger alum Knight tied the game to force overtime.
At Union South, where the university hosted an official watch party broadcast, the crowd burst out of their seats, whooping and swinging their Wisconsin and USA flags around in jubilation.
Then, just over four minutes into the 3-on-3 overtime period, Keller flipped the puck past Desbiens on a backhand goal to win the game, and the gold, for Team USA.
Team USA outclassed their previous opponents all tournament, outsourcing them 31-1 on the road to the gold medal game.
Against semifinal opponent Sweden, Team USA outshot them 34-23, but against Canada, Team USA only managed 33 shots on goal, to Canada’s 31. They found their match.
The game saw a slower pace of play throughout, and for the first time in these Olympics, Team USA did not score a goal in the first or second period.
Instead, Canada’s Kristin O’Neill notched a short-handed goal past USA goaltender Aerin Frankel early in the second period to put the Canadians ahead. Frankel had otherwise been a brick wall this tournament and had not conceded a goal since Team USA’s first game against Finland on Feb. 7. That 1-0 score remained for the majority of the game until Knight’s goal late in the third.
Edwards had a shaky game leading up to her heroics, especially struggling on defense. Any criticisms of Edwards were quickly erased after her crucial assist to Knight, saving Team USA’s gold medal aspirations.
She ended her Olympic run with a hat trick of women’s hockey history: first Black woman to play in the Olympics for Team USA, first Black woman to score a goal in the Olympics for Team USA and now first Black American to win an Olympic gold medal with Team USA.
Badger Caroline Harvey was also instrumental to Team USA’s success throughout the Olympics. She was named tournament Most Valuable Player as well as Best Defender throughout these Olympic games. Harvey was voted to the Olympic All-Star team alongside Edwards, USA forward Hannah Bilka and Canadian star centre Marie-Philip Poulin.
By the end of the tournament, Harvey and Keller shared the top spot in total points with nine. Harvey contributed two goals and seven assists over the seven games.
Edwards, Harvey, Kirsten Simms and Ava McNaughton will return to campus as world champions, and more than 50,000 students at UW-Madison will now be able to say they went to school with Olympic gold medalists.
Annika Bereny is the campus news editor for The Daily Cardinal. She previously served as the special pages editor. As a staff writer, she's written in-depth on campus news specializing in protest policy, free speech and historical analysis. She has also written for state and city news. She is a History and Journalism major. Follow her on Twitter at @annikabereny.
