They sit across from or next to each other in dressing rooms now. They pass the puck to each other in high-stakes hockey games.
Several Canadian and U.S. women representing their countries at the 2026 Olympic Games have learned to flip the switch from Professional Women’s Hockey League teammates to their default state of sworn enemies internationally.
The women’s hockey rivalry between Canada and the United States is among the most heated in all of sport.
The two countries have met in every Olympic final but one, as well as every world championship final but one. Canada holds a 17-12 record in those games, but a dozen have gone to overtime or a shootout.
“It’s definitely got a lot of history for a lot of years,” observed Canadian men’s team captain Sidney Crosby. “They always seem to find each other and it always seems to be an overtime game.”
The archrivals clash Tuesday in the preliminary round of the Olympic women’s hockey tournament in Milan, Italy.
Canada was to meet Czechia on Monday after a 4-0 win over the Swiss to start the tournament. The Czechs also carry a large dose of PWHL players, with eight.
The PWHL, in its third season, will have players from different countries going head to head against current and former PWHL teammates for the first time in an Olympic Games.
Some shared histories as NCAA teammates notwithstanding, there was a time when the majority of Canadian and U.S. players saw each other only in international games. That bred a certain frostiness.
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Players don’t believe the PWHL has thawed their long-standing duel for hockey supremacy, although a few personal relationships have changed.
“There’s just more friendly faces sort of in in-between spaces, right?” said U.S. captain Hilary Knight, a Seattle Torrent teammate of Canadian forward Julia Gosling. “Before, maybe not even talking in an elevator or taking a separate elevator. I see Gos … and say ‘hi’, which I probably wouldn’t before.
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“You just have different types of friendships, but the rivalry’s just so real, and you want it so bad. We bring out the best level of competition in one another when we throw on our national team jerseys.”
Americans and Canadians also joined forces in the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association in 2019 to work together for a sustainable league that paid them a living wage, which ultimately led to the PWHL.
“The PWHL has changed everything in our game. The rivalry has evolved. It really evolved when there was the PWHPA. The birth of that was coming together with the Americans,” said Canadian forward Brianne Jenner. “There were more kinds of relationships formed off the ice than perhaps in a previous generation, where unless you were going to the NCAA with Americans, you might not see them as people as much as we do now.
“It changes the rivalry, but doesn’t dilute it because, man, we’re competitive. You don’t want to go home after a Rivalry Series or after a world championship and have to go back to the locker room as the team that didn’t get the job done.”
A total of 13 players on the Canada and U.S. Olympic rosters are current PWHL teammates.
Canadian forwards Jenner and Emily Clark and defender Jocelyne Larocque are Ottawa Charge teammates of U.S. defenceman Rory Guilday and goaltender Gwyneth Philips.
Canada’s captain Marie-Philip Poulin, forward Laura Stacey, defender Erin Ambrose and goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens have American forward Hayley Scamurra as a Montreal Victoire teammate. Knight and forward Alex Carpenter share the Torrent roster with Gosling
A few more were former teammates before moving to other PWHL clubs.
Poulin, for example, played a Victoire season alongside U.S. defender Cayla Barnes before the latter joined the Torrent this season.
“You go in the corner, she’s going to push me, she’s going to hit me, she’s going to slash me,” Poulin said. “I’m going to do the same.
“When it’s over, we can talk about it, we can laugh about it, but it would not be respectful if we went in the corner knowing we were teammates in Montreal.”
Said Barnes: “The U.S.A.-Canada Rivalry, we always get up for it, whether you’re teammates back home or not. This is for your country, this is about pride. This is something bigger for us. So we take a lot of pride in these rivalries, and it’s just as big, if not bigger, now, especially with the P-dub.”
International bragging rights in their respective club dressing rooms are a new fuel for the rivalry.
“There’s a lot at stake and Olympic Games even higher,” Canadian forward Sarah Nurse said. “When you come back, and they announce like, ‘oh, these are our bronze (medallists), these are silver, these are gold and when your name’s not announced as gold, like, that sucks.”
– With files from Joshua Clipperton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2026.
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