A gold medal showdown is set for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where the U.S. women's hockey team is playing their archrival, Canada.The puck drops at 11:10 Eastern Time, Wednesday night.We'll update this post with news from Gangneung Hockey Arena.In the preliminary rounds before the start of the elimination round, Canada beat the U.S., 2-0 — despite the Americans firing more shots on goal, 45-23. That game was a very physical clash, including a scrum around the Canadian goal that took two referees to break up; before it was over, one of Canada's players had lost her helmet.In a bit of good news for the U.S. team, its star forward Hilary Knight broke her scoring drought at these Olympics in the semifinal against Finland that put them into this gold-medal match. But the U.S. will have to contend with Canada's Meghan Agosta, who has 17 career goals at the Winter Games – second all-time. Agosta has won three gold medals.The American women won the very first Olympic hockey tournament, in 1998. But that was 20 years ago. Since then, Canada has won every time. And often, it's been at the Americans' expense: today marks the fifth time the U.S. and Canada have met to decide who gets gold and who gets silver.The U.S. women have had great success in the World Championships during Canada's run in the Olympics. But the Americans suffered a heartbreaker in Sochi in 2014, when Canada won the gold medal match in overtime.Players on both teams say things are different now, and that they're hungry to win the title. They're also saying this game will be intense and physical.The U.S. and Canada are the only two teams to have ever won an Olympic gold medal in women's hockey. And while the start time in the U.S. falls on Wednesday night, this year's title game is taking place on Feb. 22 in South Korea — 38 years after the "Miracle on Ice" of 1980, when the U.S. men's team upset the Soviet Union.Canada's streak of four consecutive team gold medals is second among all Olympic women's events, trailing only the U.S. women's basketball team, who have won six in a row (so far). Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
U.S. Women's Hockey Team Faces Canada In Gold Medal Final
