Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2022 22:14:35 GMT
The U.S. women's national hockey team dominated in its first match of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, but will be without assistant captain Brianna Decker as the tournament continues.
Decker, a six-time World gold medalist with Team USA, was stretchered off the ice less than 10 minutes into a 5-2 victory over Finland on Thursday. Despite the loss, the U.S moved to 7-0 in Olympic openers with two goals from Kendall Coyne Schofield and two from Alex Carpenter.
The game appeared to be over at 5-1 with time expired, but when NBC came out of commercial there was 2:20 on the clock and play resumed. Officials ruled that Finland's Susanna Tapani scored and a replay showed the puck hit the camera. The teams went back in time to that point and replayed the final minutes. There was also a brief light outage earlier in the game.
The U.S. is defending its gold medal at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. It was the team's first since 1998 and came against rival Canada in an overtime shootout.
Decker, a three-time Olympian, collided with Finland's Ronja Savolainen around the 9:32 mark of the first. They were both down for several minutes and Decker's screams could be heard in the empty arena without any fans. Amanda Kessell told the NBC Sports broadcast at intermission the injury "was just sickening."
She did not return to the game with an apparent leg injury. USA Hockey said after the game appeared to be over she won't return for the tournament, per Erica L. Ayala.
Team USA did not bring any reserve players to Beijing, as other countries such as Canada. General manager Katie Million said in a news conference on Jan. 3 their understanding is they have a "small, a very small, window to bring in alternate players if we need to," via Alex Azzi at NBC Sports.
Decker, a six-time World gold medalist with Team USA, was stretchered off the ice less than 10 minutes into a 5-2 victory over Finland on Thursday. Despite the loss, the U.S moved to 7-0 in Olympic openers with two goals from Kendall Coyne Schofield and two from Alex Carpenter.
The game appeared to be over at 5-1 with time expired, but when NBC came out of commercial there was 2:20 on the clock and play resumed. Officials ruled that Finland's Susanna Tapani scored and a replay showed the puck hit the camera. The teams went back in time to that point and replayed the final minutes. There was also a brief light outage earlier in the game.
The U.S. is defending its gold medal at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. It was the team's first since 1998 and came against rival Canada in an overtime shootout.
Decker, a three-time Olympian, collided with Finland's Ronja Savolainen around the 9:32 mark of the first. They were both down for several minutes and Decker's screams could be heard in the empty arena without any fans. Amanda Kessell told the NBC Sports broadcast at intermission the injury "was just sickening."
She did not return to the game with an apparent leg injury. USA Hockey said after the game appeared to be over she won't return for the tournament, per Erica L. Ayala.
Team USA did not bring any reserve players to Beijing, as other countries such as Canada. General manager Katie Million said in a news conference on Jan. 3 their understanding is they have a "small, a very small, window to bring in alternate players if we need to," via Alex Azzi at NBC Sports.