Canada, USA, Sweden, and Switzerland remain at the Olympic women's hockey tournament. The four nations have something in common that the rest of the field do not: competitive professional leagues for women.
Canada, USA, Sweden, and Switzerland remain. They are the four teams to move on to the Olympic women’s hockey semifinals.
While the elimination of Finland and Czechia were labelled as “upsets,” they weren’t. Rather, the wins were a byproduct of a common thread: functioning and competitive professional women’s hockey leagues in each of the remaining nations.
While the PWHL is the unquestioned top league in the world, Sweden’s SDHL and Switzerland’s PostFinance Women’s League would rank second and third for post collegiate options for professional women’s hockey players. In Europe, they’re also the top two developmental leagues sending players to higher levels.
Over the last decade, Sweden and Switzerland have made concerted efforts to build their women’s hockey ecosystem. Sweden now has the most functional, and well structured pathway from grassroots to pro of any European nation, and it’s arguably a more streamlined and clear pathway than what exists in Canada’s current hodgepodge approach to women’s hockey.
Conversely, Finland’s Auroraliiga is not a professional league by any definition, and the talent pool has dropped off a cliff with all of the nation’s best players leaving Finland to find suitable development and competition pathways. In men’s hockey, the path from minor programs, to Mestis and Liiga in Finland is clear, and players are able to make the jump directly from Liiga to the NHL.
In women’s hockey, aside from Emma Nuutinen, there is no player competing domestically in Finland capable of making the jump directly to pro hockey in North America. As a result, Finland is out. While the Olympic elimination hurts, Finland’s outlook for the future is even more bleak as their women’s U-18 national team was recently relegated to the Division 1A level. It was the first relegation for a Finnish team in history, at any level, in men’s or women’s hockey.
Currently, there is not a single high calibre women’s hockey club operating in Finland that could compete in other leagues. Period. And the calibre of play in Aurorliiga is so low, particularly following the final exodus of talent from the league following the 2023-24 season, development is hindered for Finland's top individual prospects who can't practice or play alongside talent capable of pushing their play. The nation has ignored women’s hockey development and investment on many levels, and the result is going to be a consistent thinning of Finland’s talent pool as current national team members retire, with no reinforcements at any level on the way.
Czechia only this season made their first significant investment in women’s hockey adding the nation’s first ever girls hockey league. They launched their Future Olympians U-16 league, which will in time begin to pay dividends. The biggest issue for women and girls in Czechia, much like other nations attempting to compete at the Olympics outside the four remaining teams, is that there is no competitive domestic league in Czechia for women. Their top women’s teams would not be able to compete against U-18 ‘AA’ girls teams in Canada. For women in Czechia, there is an abrupt end to developmental options outside of the select few lucky enough to be identified for their U-16 and U-18 national programs. More often as we’re seeing, for Czech players who want to pursue a career in women’s hockey, they're being forced to leave for North America to play for youth clubs. At times however, many of these young players are signing on to expensive ‘academy’ programs that are looking to make money without providing the promised outcomes.
For women in Finland and Czechia, the only way to pursue hockey as a professional career, or to pursue a national team spot, is to leave their country to play in Canada, USA, Sweden, or Switzerland, which happen to be the four remaining nations at the 2026 Olympic women’s hockey tournament. These four nations are also the benefactor of the talent leaving Finland and Czechia who continue to bolster the NCAA, SDHL, PostFinance Women’s League, and PWHL, farther improving the level of play, and developmental potential for women in those nations, while abandoning the opportunities for girls domestically.
Looking at the top scorers this season in Sweden, four of the top six are from Finland. The other two are former PWHL players from Canada. Last season was the same, with the top three scorers in the league hailing from Finland, fourth from Sweden, fifth from Czechia, and sixth another Finn. The bulk of the SDHL, including many of the league’s top players remain Swedish, and they greatly benefit from playing with and against top competition from other nations on a regular basis. When you look at the PostFinance Women’s League in Switzerland, the nation has retained a large number of their own national team members in the league, headlined by Lara Stalder who has bypassed her own career by not coming to the PWHL in order to remain in Switzerland to grow the league and the game. But the league itself remains heavily supported competitively by top players from Finland, Czechia, Canada, and France.
Unless Finland and Czechia completely overhaul their programs, they’ll remain top heavy nations unable to compete with Canada and the United States, and rapidly watching nations investing in girls sports close the gap in their rear view mirror, and soon, as we saw in Milano Cortina, pass them.
Czechia has started that process, and their future looks bright, even if there remains no viable option for women in the nation to play domestically as pros. The nation could use a similar tactic to neighbouring countries who have sent teams to join the EWHL or DFEL, a move which would help all involved. Still, Czechia has a strong pipeline to the NCAA and a U-18 program that won World bronze this year, and with their Future Olympians U-16 program, the nation is adding new opportunities that will help grow the game.
Finland has the infrastructure, but not the investment. While men in the nation can play professionally and make a legitimate living in Liiga, it costs money to play in Auroraliiga for many, and no player is receiving a liveable wage without holding a secondary role in a club or outside job.
The results from the 2026 Olympic women’s hockey quarterfinals should not be defined as “upsets.” It’s a term that suggests a deviation from the expected. Instead, the quarterfinal results are a consequence, the result of nations who have in recent years put resources, personnel, and funding behind girls and women’s hockey, beating nations who have continued to underfund, or completely ignore girls and women in hockey.