Beijing 2022 - Ice Hockey - Women's

Seventy-four years after men’s hockey made its Olympic Winter Games debut, women finally got their chance to pursue Olympic dreams at the 1998 Nagano Games. That tournament wasn’t only historic for the game of hockey, it ended up being an iconic moment for women’s hockey in the United States. Team USA brought home the gold and inspired a generation along the way.

Some of the girls that grew up watching legends like Cammi Granato, A.J. Mleczko and Angela Ruggiero were on Team USA 20 years later in PyeongChang, where they duplicated the 1998 team’s gold-medal performance. Who will be on the team in 2038 remains to be seen, but U.S. players and fans hope it won’t be that long before another gold medal. They’d like to start with a repeat in Beijing, but there’s a formidable opponent to the north in their way.

For all of Team USA’s success in women’s hockey, Canada has often gotten the best of their rivals when it comes to gold medals. In between U.S. Olympic triumphs, Canada won four straight. The teams have met in all but one gold-medal game in Olympic history.

While some familiar names will be missing in Beijing — such as the now-retired Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, who scored the winning shootout goal four years ago to clinch gold —the U.S. is still an experienced team. Fifteen players on the 23-player roster have Olympic experience. Thirteen of those players were on the ice for the gold medal in PyeongChang while Megan Bozek and Alex Carpenter last competed at the 2014 Games.

Updated on January 28, 2022.