THE CANADIAN PRESS
HAMEENLINNA, Finland — Former Canadian goaltender Sami Jo Small once said she would never feel sorry for beating another country by a couple of touchdowns because it showed how hard the national women’s team worked to be that dominant.
The 2009 edition of the Canadian women’s hockey team continued unapologetic of its prowess with a 13-1 thrashing of overmatched China to open the world women’s championship Saturday.
That China has less than 200 registered female hockey players to Canada’s 77,000 begins to explain the disparity between the country ranked No. 1 in the world by the International Ice Hockey Federation and the No. 8-ranked team.
While the lopsided score makes it easy to knock women’s hockey, gaps in international hockey development isn’t exclusive to the women’s game. Canada’s under-20 men’s team defeated Kazakhstan 15-0 at the world junior championships in Ottawa in December.
"In the men’s game there’s the tendency to think there’s more competition, but in the world juniors there’s some lopsided scores and some games that you flip the channel because it’s not so fun to watch," Canadian captain Hayley Wickenheiser said. "That happens on both sides."
Wickenheiser and Sarah Vaillancourt paced Canada’s output with five-point nights apiece — two goals and three assists.
Canada spread the rest of the scoring out among Carla MacLeod, Caroline Ouellette, Marie-Philip Poulin, Meghan Agosta and Haley Irwin in front of sparse attendance of 635 people at Patria Arena.
Irwin had a four-point performance in her world championship debut as she also had three assists in addition to her goal.
Ouellette had two assists and Jennifer Botterill’s two pushed her past a career 100 in her 160th game.
Goaltender Charline Labonte faced only four shots for the victory, so China’s power-play goal in the first period knocked her save percentage down to .750.
Meanwhile, Canada pelted China with 76 shots. Yao Shi was replaced after seven goal on 41 by Dandan Jia, who stopped 29 of 35.
Canada meets Sweden on Monday in Pool B play of the preliminary round. The Swedes beat Canada for the first time at the Four Nations Cup in November with a 3-2 overtime win.
In other games Saturday, defending champion U.S. shut out Japan 8-0 in Pool A. Host Finland drew 3,241 spectators to the 5,300-seat rink and opened with a 7-0 win over Kazakhstan in Pool C.
Canada set team records Saturday for the fastest two and three goals scored in history. MacLeod and then Ouellette struck within 10 seconds of each other starting at 3:53 of the first period to better the previous record of 11 seconds. Vaillancourt made it three goals in a span of 46 seconds to beat the previous top time of 55 seconds.
Head coach Melody Davidson says she coaches more in games like Saturday’s than she does in a tight game versus the U.S. There’s time to work on the small details of the game and she also has to stay on top of her players so they stick to her game plan.
"When you’re winning, it’s the best time to coach because they’re in a good mood and they’re interested in listening to you," she explained. "You can’t give them an inch because if they’re allowed to freelance and do their own thing, it just hurts you down the road."
She wasn’t happy with Canada’s play in the first period after the six-minute mark and her brow furrowed further when Sun Rui scored China’s first goal against Canada in nine years at 14:05. Sun knocked down Jin Fengling’s high floating pass from the blue-line and shovelled it past Labonte.
"I was really disappointed in our penalty killers," Davidson said. "We took a long shift and on top of that we didn’t pay a price to block the shot. The puck should never have even got through."
The Canadians cut down overpassing the puck in the second and third periods and focused on getting it to the net more often.
Canada was faster to the loose puck and stronger protecting it so China rarely had it as a result. The majority of the game was played in China’s end as the Canadians cycled the puck almost at will.
"Canada is No. 1 in the world and they showed it tonight with their skills," said China head coach Paul Strople of Halifax. "We tried to slow them down as much as they could, but it becomes a physical factor for us."
"When we did get to the puck, we gave it up fairly easily because their girls are physically stronger than our girls on the puck."
But for a non-hockey country to be in the world ‘A’ championship, to have hosted it last year in Harbin and to be shooting for a top-six result deserves some credit, Wickenheiser pointed out.
China qualified for the eight-country field at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
The Chinese spent weeks in Canada the last two seasons playing teams across the country in an attempt to improve their game. Half a dozen of their players spent a season playing alongside Canadian players on club teams.
That’s a financial investment Wickenheiser wishes more countries would make in women’s hockey.
"If the Russians and Germans would do the same, they would probably have more to work with," she said.
Canadian equipment manager Robin McDonald did some quick doctoring of the team’s jerseys right before the game because of a sponsorship issue.
Nike supplies team’s jerseys at the men’s and junior world championships and has the option to do so at the women’s championship. The company declined that option here and Tackla is the tournament sponsor.
That means the Nike swoosh that adorns most teams’ jerseys here had to be covered and McDonald was informed two and a half hours before game time. In addition to the myriad of other pre-game duties of an equipment manager, he stitched red patches on the upper chest of 21 jerseys in time before the puck dropped. The alteration wasn’t visible from the stands.
"I saw him rushing to get all the jerseys ready and trying to patch them up on time and he did a very good job because we all had them done," Johnston said.
While he could have covered the logos with tape, McDonald said "I didn’t want it to look second-class."
Notes : Officials at the world championship wear "Fair Pay" yellow logos on the back of their stripes, which makes it look like they’re agitating for better union wages. It’s actually a corporate logo for a credit management service company … Poulin, from Beauceville, Que., became the third-youngest to play for Canada at a world championship or an Olympic Games at 18 years seven months. Wickenheiser (15 at 1994 worlds) and Cheryl Pounder (17 at 1994 worlds) were the youngest … Poulin, Irwin, from Thunder Bay, Ont., and Montreal defenceman Catherine Ward all made their world championship debuts Saturday.
