The 2024 IIHF Women’s World Hockey Championship features the best players from 10 nations competing for the coveted gold medal. The tournament, which begins on April 3 and will culminate with the bronze and gold-medal games on April 14, will be staged at Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, N.Y.
The ten teams are divided into two groups: Group A comprises the U.S., Canada, Czechia, Finland, and Switzerland, while Group B comprises China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, and Sweden. In the preliminary round, each team will play the other four teams in its group. All five teams from Group A and the top three from Group B advance to the quarterfinals on April 12, with the winners facing off in the semifinals on April 13. The two semifinal winners will play for gold on April 14, with the losing two teams competing for bronze earlier that day.
The 2024 IIHF WW marks just the fifth time the U.S. has hosted the event and the first time since 2017, when the tournament was held in Plymouth, Michigan. Other U.S. host cities have included Lake Placid, New York (1994), Minneapolis (2001), and Burlington, Vermont (2012).
The United States and Canada are the favorites to reach the gold medal game, but the two organizations have taken different routes toward finalizing their rosters.
Team Canada Sets Roster Early
Last year’s silver medalists set their roster in early March. Among the 23 players named were newcomers Nicole Gosling and Julia Gosling. The cousins reunited earlier this season at the December stops of the Rivalry Series. Julia Gosling, captain of St. Lawrence in the NCAA, was a game-changer for Canada in that series and consistently one of their best players.
With only two newcomers, Canada will again field a veteran lineup for the 2024 World Championships. Their forward group includes Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey, Natalie Spooner, Brianne Jenner, Sarah Nurse, Emma Maltais, Blayre Turnbull, Kristen O’Neill, Jamie Lee Rattray, and Danielle Serdachny who all won silver with Canada at last year’s tournament.
The blue line also features multiple returnees, including Jocelyne Larocque, Renata Fast, Jaime Bourbonnais, and Ella Shelton. In net, Ann-Renee Desbiens, Emerance Maschmeyer, and Kristen Campbell return.
Team USA to Hold Evaluation Camp
Team USA is taking a different approach to its roster. It has decided to hold an evaluation camp from March 27 to 30 at the Lake Placid Olympic Center in Lake Placid, N.Y., and has invited 39 players to compete for 23 spots. The final roster for the U.S. Women’s National Team is expected to be announced on Sunday, March 31. The players who make the team will practice at the Lake Placid Olympic Center on April 1 before traveling to Utica.
Players will be split into two teams and compete in practices and scrimmages during the four-day camp. The group will also face Czechia in a pre-tournament game on March 30 at 7 p.m. ET at the Lake Placid Olympic Center as part of the evaluation process.
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Of the 39 skaters invited, 20 players are returning from the 2023 World Championship roster, while 13 players will be vying to make their senior national team debut. Six players from the 2023 tournament were not invited to the evaluation camp, including Abbey Levy (G), Lee Stecklein (D), Nicole LaMantia (D), Becca Gilmore (F), Abby Roque (F) and Amanda Kessel (F) – Stecklein announced she was stepping away from the national team, while Kessel is taking the year off from playing.
The U.S. has made it to the gold-medal game in all 22 of the IIHF Women’s World Championships, winning the gold in six of the last eight tournaments (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2023). In 22 appearances, Canada has captured 12 gold medals, nine silvers and one bronze (2019). Even with their different methods of assembling their teams, there is no reason to think these two squads are not on a collision course to play for the gold medal on April 14.
