Four members of the Boston University women’s hockey team are keeping busy in the offseason, heading to the gold medal game of the International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s championship on Monday with Team Canada.
Freshman forward Marie-Philip Poulin, graduate student and junior defensemen Catherine Ward and Tara Watchorn, and junior forward Jenn Wakefield will play in Monday’s gold medal game in Zurich, Switzerland.
Poulin, the youngest player on the team at 20, scored the game-winning goal in Canada’s 4-1 semifinal victory over Finland on Saturday.
Since the women’s hockey tournament began as an IIHF event in 1990, Canada has participated in every championship game.
To advance to the final this year, Canada first beat Switzerland 12-0 back on April 16, scoring six goals in 42 shots on Northeastern goalie Florence Schelling and six more on her backup, Sophie Anthamatten.
Against Schelling, the goalie who helped Northeastern knock BU out of the Hockey East playoffs on March 5, Watchorn, the youngest defenseman on the team, had two assists.
Poulin and Wakefield scored one goal each, and Ward recorded an assist.
Canada then defeated Kazakhstan 7-0 and beat Finland 2-0 on Tuesday before taking down Finland again on Saturday.
Poulin has three goals and an assist for four points in four games. She has also won 70.5 percent of her face-offs, fourth among players who have taken at least 20 draws. Ward ranks third in the tournament in plus-minus with a plus-9.
University of Wisconsin forward Hilary Knight, who is playing for the United States, leads all players in the tournament with four goals and eight assists for 12 points in four games. Knight was third in the nation in scoring this season with 1.98 points per game with Wisconsin.
Despite dominating its opposition thus far, Canada does not have a single player in the top 10 in the tournament in scoring.
Canada will face Knight and the U.S. team in the finals on Monday, as the U.S. defeated Russia, 5-1, in its semifinal game on Saturday.
This is the 13th straight year that the two teams have met in the finals. The U.S. has won the last two matches and three of the last four.
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