By JOHN WAWROW
MILAN (AP) — Alina Muller immediately understood the importance her bronze medal-clinching additional time objective in a 2-1 win over Sweden meant not solely to women again dwelling in Switzerland, however within the greater image of ladies’s hockey.
Muller has spent the previous 12 years experiencing the ups and downs, fitful begins and stops her sport has endured since first splashing on the Swiss hockey scene as a 15-year-old by scoring her nation’s first bronze-medal clinching objective on the 2014 Sochi Video games.
These Milan Cortina Games, nonetheless, have been totally different for Muller and the remainder of the opponents. They signify the primary Olympics because the Professional Women’s Hockey League was launched in the summertime of 2023.
“Just some years in the past there would have been 100 folks within the stands, and now it’s loopy to see,” stated Muller, the previous school star at Northeastern and now in her third season with the Boston Fleet.
“Yearly, it’s getting extra thrilling. We’re getting extra bodily, extra athletic, quicker, quicker recreation,” she added. “And the stadiums are filling up.”
For a sport and league banking on enjoying a post-Olympic boost, the event delivered on many fronts.
U.S. captain Hilary Knight is heading dwelling with a gold medal in closing her Olympic profession. The event featured two thrilling medal finals, each ending in additional time, with the Americans beating Canada 2-1. And the aggressive hole the U.S. and Canada have lengthy loved seems to be closing ever so barely.
“That is simply the brand new regular,” Canada coach Troy Ryan stated following the loss Thursday.
“Largely due to the impression of the PWHL, you noticed plenty of nearer video games,” added Ryan, who additionally coaches the PWHL Toronto Sceptres. “You noticed worldwide groups which have PWHL gamers in it showcase higher than they beforehand did.”
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United States’ Megan Keller (5) scores the profitable objective throughout the girls’s ice hockey gold medal recreation between america and Canada on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photograph by way of AP)
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United States’ Megan Keller (5) scores the profitable objective throughout the girls’s ice hockey gold medal recreation between america and Canada on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photograph by way of AP)
4 years after Czechia broke by means of by profitable its first medal, a bronze, on the world championships, Switzerland and Sweden climbed the ranks by reaching the medal spherical because the fifth- and sixth-seeded groups.
Simply as vital have been the dearth of lopsided scores, which beforehand raised questions as as to whether anybody can catch Canada and the U.S. Essentially the most one-sided consequence was the top-seeded People’ 6-0 win over host Italy within the quarterfinals.
That’s a big departure from the previous when Canada routed the Italian hosts 16-0 on the 2006 Turin Video games, adopted by Canada’s 18-0 win over Slovakia in 2010. 4 years in the past in Beijing, 5 video games have been determined by seven or extra targets, together with Canada’s 10-3 win over Switzerland within the semifinals.
In Milan, 9 video games have been determined by one-goal margins, together with 4 of eight within the knockout and medal rounds.
“What your complete world loved in Milan was the very best degree of Olympic girls’s hockey we’ve ever seen,” PWHL govt vp of hockey operations and Hockey Corridor of Famer Jayna Hefford advised The Related Press. “The pace, the talent, the physicality, it’s all been elevated, and the aggressive stability is stronger than ever.”
PWHL hats have been notable round Milan, and the league’s Olympic pins so in demand they have been traded in to pay for a minimum of one dinner.
And the league’s affect on worldwide competitors is just anticipated to develop with extra roster spots opening on the horizon. After including two franchises final yr, the eight-team PWHL is getting ready to broaden by as many as 4 extra for subsequent season.
The expansion is a mirrored image of the league’s need to draw much more expertise from Europe. And the timing coincides with a deep and gifted prospect class eligible for this yr’s draft. It’s a bunch topped by People Caroline Harvey, the event MVP, Abbey Murphy and Laila Edwards, and likewise contains Sweden’s Josefin Bouveng, Finland’s Elisa Holopainen and Swiss goalie Andrea Braendli.
“I feel it’s a giant recreation changer,” Swedish coach Ulf Lundberg stated of the PWHL.
“I’ve been there watching plenty of video games and I can see it,” added Lundberg, whose staff featured seven U.S. collegiate athletes. “It’s massive occasions for each recreation and it’s for actual, so I feel it’s essential for girls’s hockey.”
There’s a payoff, too, for PWHL gamers. They now have a league to return to, with the PWHL schedule resuming subsequent week, slightly than spend a lot of the subsequent 4 years enjoying and training in relative obscurity as they’ve completed prior to now.
“I feel it’s simply the fact that ladies’s hockey isn’t going to go silent. It’s not going to go darkish,” U.S. ahead and Minnesota Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield stated, a day earlier than the gold medal remaining. “You’ll have the ability to see each one among these gamers in tomorrow night time’s recreation per week from now, which is fairly superior and hasn’t been the case for the existence of ladies’s hockey and the Olympic video games.”
AP Winter Olympic: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
