Team USA is focusing on being the best individual Olympians preparing for a team sport heading into the 2026 Olympics, while Canada hopes to get into game shape with their respective teams. What approach will result in gold?
With centralization ahead of the Olympics, Canada and USA's national women's hockey tams are now through their best opportunities to prepare as a team ahead of the 2026 Olympics in Milano Cortina.
Canada held two-week training blocks in Calgary, Toronto, and over the past two weeks, Montreal. USA prepared in Lake Placid, New York and Blaine, Minnesota before their most recent stint together for the Rivalry Series in Cleveland and Buffalo.
But with PWHL training camps already underway, and the NCAA season almost two months old, it's time for players from both programs to head their respective ways. The only remaining opportunity for the teams to come together as a group will be during the one-week stop of the Rivalry Series' second leg this December in Edmonton, and the days leading up to the Olympics in Italy.
USA head coach John Wroblewski knows that hockey is a team sport, but also that the women who are competing for a spot with Team USA are elite athletes, many professionals, who need to own the Olympic process and preparation as individuals who are members of Team USA.
"The spirit of the Olympics is also different than the World Championships type of team, or just the regular national team type event," said Wroblewski, who will enter his first Olympics as head coach of Team USA.
"We feel like the Olympics has to be player driven as opposed to team driven where they have to arrive in Italy as good as they can be with themselves. They're up to the challenge to take care of themselves ultimately. We started this countdown a long time ago, that listen, we're leaving you alone, you need to arrive in Italy like you're competing in an individual style sport so that when you areive there, you're not just a part of this team, you're an individual that's playing for the United States and representing the United States and happens to be in the sport of hockey that's a team sport. So that's part of our mindset so we're real comfortable with them going off on their own right now and setting themselves up for the next series."
While USA will continue to prepare following two dominant wins over Canada on the first leg of the Rivalry Series, Wroblewski trusts his team, and knows they'll have another opportunity to come together in Edmonton in December. He expects USA to arrive even sharper than they were this time around
"Some of their game timing and conditioning should be even sharper," he said.
"We haven't done a ton with the players when they haven't been with us. There's probably a little bit of overconsumption that you can do. I don't know how much it translates on Zooms. You can send out a playbook all you want and I think that makes the coach feel good, but you don't that internal belief and questioning from players in that."
For Canada, there might be more emphasis placed on team preparation during the coming months after the team struggled to put together effective defensive systems, and watched themselves get systematically exposed on the penalty kill time and again.
"We're all going in our own hubs right now and obviously the work keeps going, it's not letting it down it's just for us keep again our head down and go to work," said Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin. "Every time you wear that jersey you've got to do the best you can do and we know February is going to come quick enough so we're going to keep moving and keep doing the right work and go from there."
Veteran defender Renata Fast echoed Poulin's sentiment and believes Canada will benefit from getting PWHL games under their belts. USA has many NCAA standouts including Abbey Murphy, Laila Edwards, Caroline Harvey, Tessa Janecke, Lacey Eden, Kirsten Simms, Emma Peschel, and Joy Dunne. They've all been playing games and training with their teams since September. Canada, alternatively, only has Caitlin Kraemer, Eve Gascon, and Chloe Primerano coming from the NCAA. Aside from Gascon's start in game one, none were given key roles like the American NCAA cohort.
According to Fast, getting PWHL games going should benefit Canada.
“You can prepare so much in practice and skill sessions, and the training blocks we’ve had where we have made a lot of progress, but playing games is different," said Fast. "There is game shape and it doesn’t matter how good you feel in practice, when you come to a game it feels different and timing is a big component of that. Having some PWHL games under our belt will be super valuable for all of us and I think we will be motivated coming into those games, on home soil and our last two games before the Olympic team is named.”
While Canada will enter the 2026 Olympics as the reigning gold medalists, those games were now four years ago, and both rosters have changed. While USA looks to focus on individual preparation, Canadian players are looking forward to team preparation. How those approaches pay off in February will decide the color of medal each nation brings home when the closing ceremonies come.