The Canadian women’s hockey team dropped the first game of the Rivalry Series against Team USA on Tuesday night at Kelowna’s Prospera Place.
It was a treat for Kelowna hockey fans as Canada and the USA have been at the top of women’s hockey for a long time.
Despite outshooting the USA 8-6 in the first period, it was a slow start for Team Canada as they went 0-3 on the powerplay and found themselves down 1-0 after the first period. USA’s Hannah Brandt found the pack of the net in the first period.
Just over two minutes into the second period, USA star Hilary Knight doubled the lead to 2-0.
The second half of the period is when Canada came alive. Claire Thompson and Marie-Philip Poulin scored goals 62 seconds apart to tie the game at two.
Canada took their first lead of the game in the third period when Emily Clark scored 6:24 into the third period.
Late in the game, Canadian Laura Stacey took what ended up being a costly penalty as the United States’ Alex Carpenter scored to tie the game at three and force overtime.
After overtime didn’t solve anything, the two teams went to a shootout, where Carpenter put the game away in the third round of the shootout to give the US a 4-3 win.
Canadian goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer made 20 saves in the loss while American Nicole Hensley made 33 saves in the win.
Game two of the Rivalry Series takes place on Thursday, Nov. 17, at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.
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