Serdachny scores overtime winner as Canada edges U.S. for women's hockey worlds gold
CBC
Canada reclaimed the women's world hockey championship with a measure of revenge.
After losing last year's gold-medal game to the United States on home ice in Brampton, Ont., the Canadians turned the tables with Sunday's 6-5 overtime victory over the U.S. in Utica, N.Y.
"Oh man, that feels good to win it on U.S. soil," Canadian goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens said. "We owed it to them and owed it to ourselves to win that one."
Danielle Serdachny scored the golden goal at 5:16 of overtime on a Canadian power play. The U.S. was caught with too many players on the ice in OT of a see-saw battle between women's hockey heavyweights.
Serdachny scored Canada's second power-play goal of the entire tournament with two seconds left in that penalty.
WATCH l Serdachny's power-play goal in overtime powers Canada to gold medal:
The 22-year-old from Edmonton backhanded a rebound off an Erin Ambrose shot by the pad of U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel.
"I'm still a bit in shock," Serdachny said. "I just tried to take the goalie's eyes away there and the rebound kind of popped right to me, so bit of a lucky one I'd say but just tried to get everything into it.
"When it was in the back of the net, I couldn't believe it still."
Canada's captain Marie-Philip Poulin scored her first two goals of the tournament. She tied the game in the second period and gave her team a brief 5-4 lead in the third.
As Canadian head coach Troy Ryan gradually increased his captain's minutes in the tournament, Poulin was a feisty, physical force getting under opposing players' skins before getting on the scoresheet Sunday.
"Pou will always find a way to be a difference maker," Ryan said. "The end of the preliminaries and in the semifinal, she impacted with a little bit of greasy play with physicality and just finding ways to impact the game.
"Tonight was just a whole other level. I could see in her eyes every time we called her name that she was ready to go. There's very few athletes in the world that can perform in a pressure situation like she can."
Ambrose, Emily Clark and Julia Gosling also scored for Canada.
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