Team USA headed to womens hockey gold medal game at...

What’s Happening

Listen up: Their respective semifinal wins on Monday set up a seventh gold-medal showdown between Team USA and Canada later this week.

World Team USA headed to women’s hockey gold medal game, guaranteeing hardware for 8th straight Winter Olympics : / 8:14 PM EST / CBS/AP Add CBS News on Google Aerin Frankel stopped 21 shots for her third shutout of the Olympic women’s hockey tournament and the favored United States advanced to the gold-medal game 5-0 at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday. Abbey Murphy, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Hayley Scamurra scored on consecutive shots over a 2:47 late in the second period to blow the game open and put the Americans up 5-0. (shocking, we know)

Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.

The Details

The Americans continued their roll through the tournament 6-0, and outscoring their opponents by a combined 31-1. Has yet to trail or be tied after 0-0, and is in a position to become the third women’s team to do so over the entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010.

Also extended its shutout streak to 331 minutes, 23 seconds, going back to Czechia’s Barbora Jurickova beating Frankel on a breakaway in the second period of a tournament-opening 5-1 win. Dominance but also the team’s physicality, with several scuffles breaking out on the ice.

Why This Matters

The Americans’ shutout victory over Sweden, coupled with Canada’s win later in the day over Switzerland in the other semifinal game, set up what will be a seventh gold-medal showdown against Canada on Thursday. Team USA celebrates after beating Sweden in the women’s ice hockey semifinals at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Mattia Martegani/NurPhoto via The U.

Global events like this tend to have ripple effects worldwide.

Key Takeaways

• Already beat Canada 5-0 in a preliminary round game last week.
• The Americans clutched Olympic gold in 1998 and 2018, with Canada winning the other five tournaments.
• Every Olympic gold medal match in women’s hockey, except one, has been U.
• This is Coyne Schofield’s fourth trip to the Olympics.

The Bottom Line

She before took home a gold and two silvers. This is Captain Hilary Knight’s fifth trip to the Olympics.

Is this a W or an L? You decide.