Team USA head coach John Wroblewski discusses USA's youth facing the experience of Team Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Championships.
Team USA head coach John Wroblewski discusses USA's youth facing the experience of Team Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Championships.
USA and Canada is a game and rivalry as old as international hockey itself. This year, it's yet another rematch of last year's gold medal game in Brampton where USA took gold. It's also a rematch of the Rivalry Series through this season.
But for USA head coach John Wroblewski, it's also a game between youth and experience, where two nations have designed their programs in very different ways, but with the same goal, a gold medal, in mind.
"I'm excited to see what our young group can do against this established Canadian group," said USA head coach John Wroblewski.
"If you look at it on paper it's not even a contest with their experience, the way that they're designed, the way they've got some things in place, so many women from the Olympic team and we've got a group of young ladies that were really admiring that four or five years ago playing minor hockey."
USA's roster features 13 players who competed in the NCAA this season. Of those players, eight are 21 or under.
Canada enters with only one player aged 21, new defender Nicole Gosling, and only four players - Danielle Serdachny, Julia Gosling, Nicole Gosling, and Sarah Fillier - who played in the NCAA this year.
How those differing approaches to team building play out will not be decided until the medals are awarded, but Canada and USA will take that first step tonight as they meet for first place in Group A.