The American women’s hockey team beat the Canadians by a 2-1 rating in extra time on Thursday afternoon to win the 2026 Olympic gold medal.
Canada has now lost eight straight games against the U.S.
With the silver medal, Canada now has 15 medals on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Kristin O’Niell scored the sport’s opening goal early within the second period on a short-handed breakaway for Canada, but American Hilary Knight scored the equalizer with lower than three minutes within the third period. It was 29 year-old Megan Keller who scored the extra time winner for the U.S.
Canada won the gold medal against the U.S. on the 2022 Beijing Olympics by a 3-2 rating.
Canada and the U.S. are the one countries to win Olympic gold medals since women’s hockey was first introduced within the Olympics in 1998. Each gold medal game has been separated by one goal since Torino 2006, where Canada beat Sweden by a 4-1 rating. Canada and the U.S. have faced off for the Olympic gold medal seven times previously eight gold medal matchups.
Players congratulate after a women’s ice hockey gold medal game between america and Canada on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
The sport as an entire marked a brand new chapter in the event of ladies’s hockey, as that is the primary Olympic gold medal game because the launch of the Skilled Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).
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Cheri Bradish, a sport business professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, had told Global News ahead of the sport that while “the PWHL has a worldwide footprint, (it) really is a North American property.”
“What will likely be really interesting to trace now could be this global stage, where the Olympics will take the PWHL global otherwise.”
Canada’s Kristin O’Neill (43) celebrates a goal with Jocelyne Larocque (3) and Erin Ambrose (23) throughout the second period of the ladies’s gold medal hockey game on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
( THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)
The PWHL began the season with its strongest attendance in league history, welcoming greater than 154,000 attendees across the primary 16 games of the season in January. The PWHL also announced in March 2025 that the league surpassed a million fans in attendance since its launch.
While 61 PWHL athletes flew to Milan to compete in these Olympic Games, there have been 39 PWHL players competing on this yr’s gold-medal game, and a further six PWHL players within the bronze medal game between Switzerland and Sweden, showcasing the talent of PWHL players. Currently, the PWHL has 17 players playing from across 10 different countries not in North America.
Laurel Walzak, professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s RTA sport media program, called the constructing of ladies’s hockey “promising.”
“Once you see the ladies’s game, there may be a lot hope. There may be professionalism, there may be talent, they’re playing more often, there’s extra money being put into it,” said Walzak.
“All of that put together makes this great recipe of success.”
Jayna Hefford, PWHL executive vice-president of hockey operations, said “the bar has been raised in Milano Cortina with elevated speed, skill and physicality driven by the PWHL and the worldwide growth of the sport.”
“We all know loads of recent fans could also be discovering women’s hockey and falling in love with the game through the Olympics, and it’s exciting to feed that surging interest with the PWHL, where fans can proceed following world-class athletes competing each day, not only every 4 years,” said Hefford.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.