Payback will be on the minds of Team Canada at the 2024 IIHF Women’s World Championship.
Playing on home ice in Brampton last year, Canada had their hopes of a golden three-peat dashed when the United States scored three times in the final 3:10 of the championship game, giving the Americans a 6-3 victory and their first gold medal at the event since 2019.
A year later, Canada will look to return the favour by winning gold on American ice. The 2024 tournament is set to begin on April 3 in Utica, NY with Canada playing their first game on April 4 against Finland.
READ: Team Canada wins silver at IIHF Women’s World Championship
Team Canada will be bringing a roster that looks very similar to last year’s silver medal winning squad. Twenty players from last year’s team will be back and the roster includes just two players — cousins Julia and Nicole Gosling — that have not appeared in a world championship before.
The Gosling cousins join Danielle Serdachny and Sarah Fillier as the only four players on Team Canada that played college hockey this year. Fillier recorded 43 points in 29 games at Princeton University this past season and will play in her fourth world championship. The 23-year-old had seven goals and four assists in seven games at last year’s event.
READ: 5 key takeaways from Team Canada’s silver medal at IIHF Women’s World Championship
The rest of Team Canada’s roster has called the Professional Women’s Hockey League home this season. There are plenty of familiar names amongst the PWHL leading scorers — veteran Natalie Spooner currently leads the way in points with 20 and goals with 15. Spooner has helped put Toronto in first place in the standings with a 13-6-0-0 record.
Sitting third in PWHL scoring is Marie-Philip Poulin who has registered 17 points in 16 games with Montreal. Poulin, who will captain Canada once again, will be looking for a fourth world championship gold medal to go along with her three Olympic golds.
Along with Fillier (seven goals and four assists) and Poulin (four goals and four assists) last year, Canada was led offensively by Sarah Nurse (four goals and four assists), Brianne Jenner (three goals and four assists) and defensemen Erin Ambrose (seven assists) — all of whom will be back for another chance at gold.
Also back is the majority of Team Canada’s defensive core. Newcomer Nicole Gosling and Beijing 2022 gold medalist Ashton Bell join an experienced returning group led by the likes of Ambrose, Jocelyne Larocque and Renata Fast.
In net, Canada has brought back Ann-Renée Desbiens, Emerance Maschmeyer and Kristen Campbell. The trio won world championship and Olympic gold in 2022. Desbiens started five of Canada’s seven games last year, posting a 1.98 goals against average. Of the three, Campbell has the best numbers in the PWHL this season, posting a 12-5 record with Toronto to go along with a 2.06 GAA and .920 save percentage.
Team Canada will once again play in Group A and will be joined by the United States, Czechia, Finland and Switzerland. Group B will feature China, Denmark, Germany, Japan and Sweden.
Following their opening game on Thursday, April 4 at 7:00 p.m. ET against Finland, Team Canada will take on Switzerland on Friday, April 5 followed by Czechia on Sunday, April 7 — both of those games will have 3 p.m. ET starts. As has become tradition, the Canadians will end the preliminary round by facing off against the United States on Monday, April 8 at 7 p.m. ET.
The quarterfinals will take place April 11 followed by the semifinals on April 13 and the bronze and gold medal games on April 14. All games will be played at Utica’s Adirondack Bank Centre and will be broadcast by TSN.
Canada and the United States have met in every gold medal game in women’s worlds history except for 2019 when host Finland fell to the U.S. in the championship game.
Goaltenders (3)
Kristen Campbell (Brandon, MB)
Ann-Renée Desbiens (La Malbaie, QC)
Emerance Maschmeyer (Bruderheim, AB)
Defence (7)
Erin Ambrose (Keswick, ON)
Ashton Bell (Deloraine, MB)
Jaime Bourbonnais (Mississauga, ON)
Renata Fast (Burlington, ON)
Nicole Gosling (London, ON)
Jocelyne Larocque (Ste. Anne, MB)
Ella Shelton (Ingersoll, ON)
Forwards (13)
Emily Clark (Saskatoon, SK)
Sarah Fillier (Georgetown, ON)
Julia Gosling (London, ON)
Brianne Jenner (Oakville, ON)
Emma Maltais (Burlington, ON)
Sarah Nurse (Hamilton, ON)
Kristin O’Neill (Oakville, ON)
Marie-Philip Poulin (Beauceville, QC)
Jamie Lee Rattray (Kanata, ON)
Danielle Serdachny (Edmonton, AB)
Natalie Spooner (Scarborough, ON)
Laura Stacey (Kleinburg, ON)
Blayre Turnbull (Stellarton, NS)
