Quebec women are ready to fly on the world stage in 2022

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With the National Hockey League bypassing the Beijing Winter Olympics, the women’s hockey rivalry between Canada and the United States is set to turn heads.

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Canada and the United States have dominated the competition since women’s hockey made its debut at the 1998 Nagano Games in Japan. Canada won four of the six gold medals and finished second to the US on the other two occasions, including the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Before the pandemic brought it to a halt, the Rivalry Series, a sweeping North American tour, had produced standing crowds as well as strong television ratings. When Marie-Philip Poulin de Beauceville scored in overtime on December 18 to give Canada a 4-2 lead in the series, there were more fans watching the women on TSN than the two NHL games on TSN and Sportsnet.

The challenge for women’s hockey is to harness the interest generated by the Olympics to give the world’s best players the opportunity to earn a living from hockey.

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“Our goal is to create a league that allows women to play hockey without having to have a full-time job outside of hockey,” said Jayna Hefford, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and operations consultant for the Professional Women’s Hockey Federation. . Players Association (PWHPA). “We are not talking about million dollar contracts, but we need a sustainable league that provides reasonable salaries, benefits and insurance.”

The best players from both sides of the Canadian-US border have come together in an effort to make that dream come true. The PWHPA has joined forces with Secret deodorant, Sonnet Insurance and other sponsors to create the Dream Gap Tour which recently concluded its 2021 schedule.

Hefford said that the PWPHA is working on dates for the Dream Gap Tour 2022 to take advantage of the interest generated by the Olympics, but the ultimate goal is to have a league of its own and that could require the support of the NHL, which deals with its own problems in the era of COVID-19.

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The women’s hockey tournament won’t be the only show in town during the Olympics. There are several Quebec women about to win medals in Beijing.

Kim Boutin, a Sherbrooke native who trains at the National Short Track Speed ​​Skating Training Center at the Maurice Richard Arena, is the favorite in the 500-meter event and will lead the relay team. Boutin won a silver medal and two bronze medals at the 2018 Olympics. She was undefeated last year in the 500 meters and is the only woman to drop below 42 seconds in the event. Canada will seek revenge in the relay, an often chaotic affair that can resemble a roller derby. In 2018, Canada failed to win a medal at the event for the first time after being outscored by hosts South Korea.

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Brittany Phelan de Mont-Tremblant showed that she has recovered from a devastating knee injury when she finished second in a World Cup ski cross event in Val Thorens, France, in early December. Phelan, who won a silver medal in ski cross in Pyeongchang, is returning after multiple surgeries to repair damage he sustained in an accident during a competition in Megève, France, in 2020.

His biggest competition in Beijing will come from Marielle Thompson of Whistler, BC, who is also getting back in shape after knee surgery.

The Dufour-Lapointe sisters from Montreal are poised to win more hardware at the freestyle ski moguls event. Justine, the youngest of the three who represented Canada at the Olympics, won the gold medal in Sochi in 2014 and finished ahead of her older sister, Chloé. Justine added a silver medal in 2018.

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Olivia Asselin, a 17-year-old from Lac-Beauport, will be competing in the looping style big air event. His best years may be to come, but he has been on the national team since he was 15 years old and has several top-10 finishes on the World Cup circuit.

For two decades beginning in the 1980s, Canada dominated freestyle flying and was run by a group called the Quebec Air Force, but there are only two Quebecers on the current national team, Lewis Irving from Quebec City and Marion. Thénault de Sherbrooke. Thénault, 21, has made steady progress since she was discovered at an RBC Training Ground event in 2017. Thénault, a former gymnast and trampolinist, won a World Cup competition last winter in Kazakhstan, finished third overall in the World Cup and was rookie of the year.

Stepping away from the Olympics, teenage tennis player Leylah Fernandez is looking to build on her success after winning her first WTA title and reaching the US Open final last year. The Laval native has the rankings and the money to play in all the big events and the only possible impediment is another shutdown caused by the pandemic.

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