The U.S. National Women’s Hockey Team is Doing Rather Well in the World Championships

Although the first round of the IIHF World Championships haven’t ended yet, the U.S. women are showing that they’re absolutely here to play hockey.

Early last week, it seemed as though the IIHF World Championships in the women’s division might be Canada’s to win yet again, because the American team had a boycott going over pay. However, they and USA Hockey came to a deal, and the tournament — at least for the women’s hockey team — was back on.

As of today, the U.S. team has played two of its three preliminary matches. Suffice it to say no one has scored a goal on them yet. Per the official website, the March 31 match against Canada ended in a 2-0 result for Team USA.

Now, 2-0 against a perennial rival is a win aside from the fact that yes, they just had more goals. After all, as noted in the game recap, the U.S. and Canada have always gone home with either silver or gold, and all of those medals come from playing against each other in the championship match.

But it seems the women knew they could do better.

How do we know that? Well, take a look at yesterday’s score against Russia: 7-0, USA. That’s not a typo. For those who aren’t familiar with hockey, a 7-0 loss is really bad. To elaborate, fans of the top-flight Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL did not take well to having the same score dropped on their team, and the Chicago Tribune called it the “worst performance of the season.”

To score so many goals is great. Doing so and also putting forth a strong defensive effort to leave the other team without goals of their own sends a message. That message may be that they’re simply here to play.

Per USA Hockey, they’ll next play Finland in the last preliminary match on April 3, but it won’t be televised until April 4 on NHL Network. A live stream will be available, however.

Because the team is part of Group A, they will automatically advance to the playoffs. In fact, with two wins, Team USA already has its first-round bye secured and will head straight to the semifinals.

Looking at the overall standings, only Germany in Group B has won both of its matches so far. However, they’ve only scored five goals between their two games.

Next: World Figure Skating Championships: Ladies' Results

At this point, it looks like Team USA has all of the momentum going forward. It’s just a matter of riding that momentum all the way to another gold medal.