U.S. Women to Play Canada in Hockey

By HELENE ELLIOTT

Dec. 20, 1997 12 AM PT

The U.S. women’s national hockey team will try to end a seven-game losing streak against Canada in tournament finals when they play today for the Three Nations Cup championship at the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, N.Y.

“Because it’s for the tournament, it’s a big game. But we still have an underlying mission, and that’s to finalize some spots on our roster,” U.S. Coach Ben Smith said. “There are people on the [Olympic] bubble and some people that are confusing me as to where they might be best in our lineup. . . . I don’t think there will be players who will be able to walk away and say they didn’t get a fair chance, and as a player that’s all you can ask.”

Team USA is 1-2-1 and has lost twice to Canada in the round-robin phase. Overall, Team USA’s pre-Olympic record is 21-5-1. Canada, which defeated the U.S. to win all four women’s world championships, the previous Three Nations Cup tournament and two Pacific Rim titles, is 18-3-0 in pre-Olympic play.

Said Shannon Miller, coach of Team Canada: “We’ve had the edge on them and we want to keep it. I don’t ever want them to have the edge.”

After the game, Smith will make the final three cuts to bring his roster to 20. Women’s hockey will be a medal sport for the first time at Nagano.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

U.S. Women to Play Canada in Hockey

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